Something I just remembered yesterday was that sometimes seeds from commercial seed packs are treated with a chemical (it should say this on the package). As a personal request, if any of you are offering 'treated' seeds in this swap, could you please mark them as such in the descriptions and, especially, when you put the packages together to send out to the other members? (That way organic gardeners don't inadvertently use treated seeds in their garden.)

Thank you!

I will double check my seeds and note accordingly

I don't think it's a terribly common practice, so it's not likely that many (or any?) seeds in the swap are. If I understand correctly, it is *typically* done more often in wholesale seed purchases.

@RickCorey ... Would you agree with that statement/assumption?

So on some of mine they say they are untreated and the others doesn't mention it at all. Does that mean they are untreated if they don't mention being treated or not?

Littlecheryl said:So on some of mine they say they are untreated and the others doesn't mention it at all. Does that mean they are untreated if they don't mention being treated or not?

My understanding is that if they are treated, it will say so. Rick may be more knowledgable about that because he buys a lot of seeds from a variety of places, both wholesale and not. I know he had treated seeds in the past, but I don't know if he offered any treated ones in this swap. He *did* label the one packet of treated seeds I got in the beta swap and I greatly appreciated that.

Well besides the fact my veggies have no name, I wasn't sure if they were treated or not. We go to the nursery and get a scoop of seeds. The folks that work there have no clue what variety they sell so I highly doubt they know if they have been treated.

I don't think I have any that are treated in there , pelleted ,and such , dusted with DE a few things ,
sometimes I grow a few with vitamins and such , But no resins , DDT . or X-rays ,,

@KarenHolt, I'm in a similar situation. Only we get our seed from a feed store.

I agree that vendors selling treated seed usually say so explicitly. It lets them charge more to most commercial growers, though organic growers won't buy it at all. And they will say something like "Do not eat this or feed it to livestock, or at least don't sue us if you do".

I always copy "Treated", and what it was treated with, onto my labels, if the vendor said so or the seed is obviously off-color. The only pelleted seed I've swapped was pelleted with OMRI-approved material, and i think I put that in the comment and pkt label.)

When I buy from a place that mainly sells to market growers, like Tainong Seeds, they treat over half of their seed and always say so.

Also, their treated seed is typically neon-green or other bright color so it is obviously treated . To market growers, the anti-fungal treatment like Thiram is an extra-cost option that they prefer.

If only people read such things, remembered them, and complied with them, I would urge Dave to add something like that to the all-swaps rules: "If you know it is treated with an anti-fungal or other 'cide, you must label each pkt legibly as "Treated" and include that in the Swap List comment." But who reads and remembers all of the rules?

- - -

When someone in the Beta swap said they ONLY wanted organically grown seeds, I went back to check. Some of the packaging said "ORGANIC" in large print on the pre-printed generic envelopes, though they typically did not mention that in the fine print printed for each separate variety packed in that generic kind of envelope.

Since it only said "organic" and not "certified organic by XYZ agency", I wonder how much that means. If it were Burpee or Parks, I might guess cynically that they "accidentally"-deliberately use generic packaging so they can make everything look organic, but I trust Johnnies and Territorial to not deliberately mislead.


Edited to change "anti-fun gal" to anti-fungal. If we have any gal's here who are anti-fun, I don't wanna know about it!

Lol Rick, you made me laugh on that last part. However, you taught me something. My Merit corn is pink. I was told it was colored so that folks that were buying more than one variety of corn would not mix it up. When I handle it, the dye comes off easily on my fingers. Does that mean it was treated?

KarenHolt said: ... My Merit corn is pink. I was told it was colored so that folks that were buying more than one variety of corn would not mix it up. When I handle it, the dye comes off easily on my fingers. Does that mean it was treated?

Wow, I wish I knew! I could see arguments either way, but I would lean toward it really just being dyed, not treated with any kin d of 'cide4.


If it is in a commercial package with a point-of-sale barcode, I would guess they would be required to label it "treated" if there were a fungicide. If it was a scoop or a trade, who knows?

But since corn is usually planted into warm soil (I guess), would it even NEED a fungicide? Gurneys now "treats" all their pea and corn seed, but they sure danced around admitting WHAT they treated them with. So maybe.

>> I was told it was colored so that folks that were buying more than one variety of corn would not mix it up

?? If I were the customer, I know that I would want to know the NAMES of each, not just "this is pink so it isn't the same as all the yellow types". In other words, what possible customer anywhere would be satisfied growing "pink, blue and yellow dyed seeds" without feeling a need to know what each one WAS?

I guess some customer might be able to list the names and associated colors somewhere, but was NOT able to write down the name on a piece of paper and just stick it in the bag with the seed.

So really, I don't know. But if some clerk said that to me, I would raise one eyebrow into my hairline, give him the Hairy Eyeball, and ask "Oh, REALLY?"

The answer might be "YES, really, even if YOU don't think it's a useful idea". Sales gimmicks don't HAVE to make sense!

Or lots of people might have some habits where dyed seeds as a great advantage - again, I don't really know. I just can't imagine having seeds without labels.

Going all the way back to High School Chem lab,
if it isn't labelled, you don't know what it is,
so pour it down the drain Right Now.

Little Willy was a chemist.
Little Willy is no more.
For what he thought was H2O ,
Was H2SO4 .



After all, if a fungicide came off instantly on contact with anything, what good would it be?

And if the vendor is big enough to sue, and he sold treated seeds without labeling them, and you fed ten pounds to a hog that got sick, you could sue them. hence if it was not labelled, either it was not treated, or the vendor is immune to lawyers.

If you ever go back to that store and cross-examine them, I would love to hear more details!

(I did buy a tomato seed mix once, three colors of cherry tomatoes mixed in just one pkt. Partly invalidating my argument, they DID color those mixed seeds so you could separate them if you wanted to. Since theey were all in one pkt, that WAS very useful.)


The one I bought was only a three-way mix, but the idea was like this 7-way rainbow mix, 7 varieties and only 25-30 seeds (0.2 grams).

https://www.botanicalinterests...

Sundrop = orange (orange seed),
Gold Nugget = yellow (yellow seed),
Brown Cherry = brown (blue seed),
Sweetie = red (red seed),
Green Grape = green (green seed),
Super Snow White = white (raw seed),
Bicolor Cherry = pink/white striped (pink seed).

The nursery is the only one around that sells seed. Otherwise I have to travel to buy seed. I was so aggravated last year asking for names that I finally gave up. Had I known about Atp and gw swaps, I would have walked out without purchasing. I asked about lima beans. It took me 3 weeks to make them understand what a lima bean was. If my husband had not seen a commercial bag of beans and made them hand it to him we would not be eating limas now. Flower wise you better know your species because they don't. I know an astilbe when I see one but not necessarily which species. They didn't even know it was an astilbe. It's a gamble buying there however they actually try to keep from having anything generic. My coneflower is gorgeous and I've never seen it in a catalog or online but they can't tell me anything about it. Ugggh.

Wow, strange! They actually have bags of seeds with no names? That's a new one on me! I thought Oklahoma had lots of farms. Whaddo I know; at most I've flown over it.

You might want to "Watch" the Forum "Garden Deals".
http://garden.org/forums/view/...

People post there when they see online sales or coupons. When some seed vendor offers "free shipping" for two days, online shopping gets a lot sweeter. And if you happen to want their end-of-year discount packets, you can find some big savings.

RickCorey said:

When someone in the Beta swap said they ONLY wanted organically grown seeds, I went back to check. Some of the packaging said "ORGANIC" in large print on the pre-printed generic envelopes, though they typically did not mention that in the fine print printed for each separate variety packed in that generic kind of envelope.

Since it only said "organic" and not "certified organic by XYZ agency", I wonder how much that means. If it were Burpee or Parks, I might guess cynically that they "accidentally"-deliberately use generic packaging so they can make everything look organic, but I trust Johnnies and Territorial to not deliberately mislead.

That was me that you're talking about, I think. I relaxed that preference once the swap started, though. It especially helped that many of the seeds were self-harvested by people so I feel pretty certain they were untreated. I chuckled, though, at your comment about Burpee...and I think you are right about Victory; if they say organically grown, I would believe it.

RickCorey said:

Edited to change "anti-fun gal" to anti-fungal. If we have any gal's here who are anti-fun, I don't wanna know about it!

Oklahoma has lots of empty oil fields. We moved here 4 years ago. I honestly thought there would be more cattle ranches but kind of like farming, nope. It's been a bit of culture shock to say the least.

Hunnh! I hope that your example jump-starts a few local gardeners. If not your example, maybe a few home-fresh tomatoes will jump-start someone's Inner Gardener.

I have been through there , More oil pumps then some years ago , than working oil fields ,, I don't miss the gas odor from oil wells or those pumps running ,
I was young enough , (With my mind going back to that young) ,, That I use to wit the pumps Reminded me of "dinky birds" That had well --"odored " the best way to say that here .

This is what I run into at the feed store. You have large totes of seed that they weigh & put in papaer bags with the name. Usually sizes like 1/4, 1/2 ,& 1 pound. Purplehulls are big here because we have a tiller race/purplehull pea festival. We get a couple varieties of the southern staples - greens, squash, okra, corn. They opened an Atwoods Farm & Ranch & we got a few more varieties. Wallyworld sells their stuff but there's just no variety. Everyone grows the same thing. I joined GW years ago & what an eye opener. Someone would mention a tomato variety & I'd ask at the feed store. Blank stare. I knew more than they did, & I knew next to nothing.

Kathy, this might be a good year for you to look into Peaceful Valley at www.groworganic.com because you have a lot of space and they have a lot of variety and they are doing a $1.99 sale on all their seeds all year in celebration of their 40th year in business. I wish I hadn't loaded up in the fall, I would have saved more money if I had waited.

Kathy you have to live close to me lol. I'm 2 hours from Arkansas. We have a feed store here... for the few ranchers. Mostly fertilizer and turnips sold there. If you aren't a man, you have no business in there. Sigh. At least in MS we had co-ops with men that knew as much as us if not more. These are the things that make me homesick.