Pennsylvania Heirloom Seed Savers Club

main

Shop Securely with PayPal
Note: PHSSC is currently administered by The Folks at Home...of Course. You are welcomed to become involved, just drop us a note from our Contact page.

Note: we have recently had a disaster to our tomato seed supply. During renovations, we moved our tomato seeds to an outbuilding. In the course of two weeks mice or voles decimated our heirloom tomato seeds. We have very few kinds available this season. No one is more disappointed that we are here. While most vegetable seed orders will be fillable, very few tomato seed order will be. Over the next few days, we will be updating the website to reflect the losses. After three days of inventory, we have found that we do have at least a few of almost every variety, but we'll have to grow and save for the 2012 season. We are sorry, and we hope you realize that no one is more saddened than we.

Order Heirloom Tomatoes	Order Heirloom Vegetables	Explore other topics.

New Pages	The Heirloom Garden Blog Things Your Mama Never Taught You About Growing Tomatoes.

Other New Pages

Live Resources for Gardeners Dibbling Seed Germination vs Temperature Things Your Mama Never Taught You About Growing Tomatoes Expected Tomato Harvest Dates Must See Videos Raised Bed Gardening Tomato Trivia High Intensity Gardening Converting Lawn to Garden How Much Should I Grow? Successional Planting Recipes for Gardeners

Explore the PHSSC pages

You can find heirloom seeds and explore the information pages of the PHSSC by using the links at the left. Until all of our pages are linked, the PHSSC Index will help.

How Much?

$2 per year--only required if you choose to buy or offer seeds to other members. You do not need to join to use our site, read our articles or get our newsletter. Your membership is for the calendar year, from January 1, until December 31. We will deduct your $2 membership fee from the s&h of your first order.

Heirloom Tomato Seed

We currently offer about 70 heirloom tomato varieties for sale in all pack sizes and 140+ in growers packs for those wanting to experiment. Click a link at left to find what you need.

Heirloom Vegetable Seed

We offer a number of different heirloom and open pollinated vegetables.

Why a PA Heirloom Club?

Few heirloom varieties are legally available to Pennsylvania residents.
Of the heirloom varieties available to PA residents, even fewer come from plants actually grown in this state. (most are grown by suppliers in other parts of the country.)
Heirlooms grown by PA families for generations are not available to other state gardeners
Many gardeners are not informed on the value of heirloom plants
The Keystone State has traditionally been a location of heirloom development through its wide range of ethnic and religious groups. (i.e. Italians, English, Amish, Mennonite)
An heirloom club would allow PA gardeners to obtain orphaned heirlooms and keep them from going 'extinct'.
Heirlooms consistently grown within the Keystone State (or within Growing Zone 6) will adapt to the environment over time and become more disease and pest resistant. PHSSC will be improving the current heirlooms for the Zone 6 environment. Some say that 30% of heirlooms adapt within 3 years increasing in yield and producing earlier.

What You Can Do

Lots of things. First, Get Involved

Learn about heirloom plants
Grown some in your garden or even in containers
Learn how to save seeds from your heirlooms
sign up for our newsletter (free)
Become a member of the Pennsylvania Heirloom Seed Savers Club
take an active role in the club by:

-offering your saved seeds to members
-sharing your growing tips for other heirloom gardeners
-seeking out heirloom varieties in your area of the state
-advising the club and its members

Details

Currently there is a shortage of available heirloom seeds in the Keystone State. Retail outlets within Pennsylvania have limited supplies of heirlooms due to Pennsylvania seed requirements by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
Any seed offered for sale within the Commonwealth requires testing every nine months. The costs of keeping a seed variety on the market is therefore in excess of $25 per year. (Stored seeds are viable longer than 9 months and properly stored seeds are viable for decades.)
Because of the DOA requirements, retail stores have a limited number of heirlooms,--only those which are considered profitable. Currently there are likely less than 30 heirloom tomato varieties legally available to Pennsylvania residents. To understand what that '30' means, there are about 8-10,000 heirloom tomato varieties. There are perhaps 300 kinds of potatoes and just as many sweet potato varieties. Local suppliers may offer 3-4 kinds at most.

Internet Heirlooms

Most heirloom growers within the state acquire their heirlooms through web-based suppliers.
These web-based suppliers constitute a 'gray market' since they or most of their varieties are not licensed to be sold in Pennsylvania. Even mail order catalogs are questionable unless the company and the varieties of seeds it offers are registered and tested according to Pennsylvania DOA regulations. Regulations Registered Suppliers as of 2008, the latest available. PDF
This is a similar situation to avoiding state sales tax on internet purchase from companies which do not have retail outlets within the state. Web buyers avoid sales tax. Note buying from an out of state company does not allow you to avoid any tax. You are required to remit the same % of sales tax that you would have paid if you bought the product within Pennsylvania. Most consumers never pay that tax, but businesses are billed for it when they are audited.
Suppliers who provide seed packets to chain stores must go through the approval process for each one of the varieties they sell so they avoid getting license for unprofitable varieties.
Unfortunately, the best tomato you can eat is likely an heirloom tomato grown in your own garden and that is something that gardeners only have in limited access.

Cool Stuff Down the Road

Once PHSSC is established, members through the club may be able to request varieties through the National Plant Germplasm System or GRIN system. GRIN has plants from all over the world which it makes available for study and research. At this time there are 3,700+ tomato varieties in its collection. GRIN is not limited to tomatoes, or even vegetables, it encompasses most of the plants.
If PHSSC members encounter new heirloom varieties not currently held by GRIN or with characteristics different from those in the GRIN collections, they could and should be submitted to the USDA system.

Home	Index	About	Contact	Privacy Policy/Terms of Use	PHSSC Newsletter	Join		Download Our Catalog
				Report an Error