Is the print medium dead?

That’s always a question I hear when it comes to catalogs, but honestly, staring at a screen just don’t satisfy in the way that thumbing through a paper catalog, circling things with a pen, and dog-earing pages does.

I’m especially a sucker for a printed seed catalog. I devour it like a good book, curled up on the couch on a rainy day.

Page after page, the pictures and descriptions spring to life in my mind… Seedlings yawning and stretching in the morning sun, ruby red tomatoes (or are they yellow or purple or striped?) getting heavy on the vine, watermelons ripening just in time for picnics by a lake.

Related: Why You Should Grow Your Own Food: 8 Research-Backed Reasons

There’s a lot to look forward to with spring (and summer and fall) gardens, and it all begins in the pages of seed catalogs.

Top seed catalogs

Here, I’ve gathered a list of the best seed catalogs you can order from this year (updated for the 2023 growing season).

While all of these companies have online stores for easy shopping, the recommendations below, in particular, still offer print catalogs that promise to brighten up your mailbox all winter long.

What makes these the best seed catalogs? 

This list is by no means exhaustive, and there are plenty of other wonderful seed companies not mentioned here. But the first eight that I recommend are also the ones I’ve had the most experience with, whose seeds I’ve started year after year with great success.

Learn more: This Is What Happens When a Seed Germinates

These are all ethical companies doing good work and they believe in promoting biodiversity in the food system. Their seeds have consistently great germination rates (more than 90 percent in most cases for me), and perhaps more importantly, they care about their customers and provide a high level of service.

Garden seed catalogs

My favorite free seed catalogs for 2024

1. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (Mansfield, MO)

If you’ve been following my blog for some time, you know I’m a big fan of Baker Creek. (Disclosure: They’ve carried my cookbooks in their catalog and had me speak at their events in the past.)

Baker Creek specializes in heirloom seeds, many of which they grow and trial on their farm in Missouri. (Check out my behind-the-scenes tour of Baker Creek headquarters.)

Many of the plants I’ve profiled on my blog (like Mexican Sour Gherkins (cucamelons), Romanesco broccoli, Purple of Romagna artichokes, fish peppers, and Black Futsu squash) came from Baker Creek seeds.

The flagship Whole Seed Catalog is big and beautiful (over 500 pages!) and reads like a hefty magazine (kind of like the September issue of Vogue… but picture wide-grinned farmers instead of aloof supermodels).

It’s chock full of seed history, growing resources, recipes, and page after page of eye candy featuring more than 1,000 heirloom seed varieties (which, if you can believe it, is only a fraction of their full selection).

They also offer a free smaller catalog upon request, or you can browse their selection online.

2. Kitazawa Seed Company (Salt Lake City, UT)

This was one of the first seed companies I ever ordered from, and they continue to be an important source for many of the herb and vegetable seeds I sow each year.

Since 1917, Kitazawa has specialized in Asian seeds and their selection is vast for a specialty seed supplier (over 500 varieties of Asian vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers).

They carry seeds I’ve never seen anywhere else, like hard-to-find Vietnamese herbs, Japanese radishes, Korean gochujang peppers (the same kind that’s dried and ground to a powder for kimchi), and dozens of Chinese cabbage varieties. Flipping through their catalog makes me nostalgic for my family’s home cooking!

Kitazawa offers a no-frills garden seed catalog on their site that you can also download as a PDF.

3. Botanical Interests (Broomfield, CO)

I love ordering from Botanical Interests because their seed packets are beautiful and hands down, the best I’ve seen from any seed supplier.

Each packet features a detailed artist’s rendering of the plant in front. Peel open the packet and inside you’ll find a mini encyclopedia filled with an incredible amount of information on growing, harvesting, pest control, cooking tips, and plant history.

If you’re new to growing, you can’t go wrong with Botanical Interests because they’re truly invested in your success as a gardener.

They carry a curated selection of just over 600 varieties of organic, heirloom, and native seeds. You can request a seed catalog in the mail or browse a digital version online.

4. Seed Savers Exchange (Decorah, IA)

Much more than just a garden seed company, Seed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit dedicated to preserving biodiversity in food crops.

They collect and store thousands of rare heirloom seed varieties in the country’s largest nongovernmental seed bank, and operate the world’s largest online seed exchange where members can search and swap open-pollinated seeds and plants.

If you’re in their neck of the woods, you can visit the display gardens and farm where a lot of their work takes place.

For everyone else, Seed Savers Exchange offers a beautiful print catalog and digital catalog, or you can shop their vegetable, herb, and flower seeds online.

5. Territorial Seed Company (Cottage Grove, OR)

Territorial Seed Company is located just over the Cascade Range from me, and I love supporting other Oregon businesses.

They have a 75-acre trial, research, and production farm that’s certified USDA Organic, and their location (at 900 feet elevation in the rainy Willamette Valley) means it’s a challenge to grow long-season, hot-weather crops.

So if you live in a similar climate that stays cool at night all summer, you can be assured that any variety Territorial Seed grows and offers is likely to do well in your own garden!

Shop their wide assortment of vegetable, herb, fruit, flower, and cover crop seeds online, or request a free catalog from their site.

6. Fedco Seeds (Clinton, ME)

Fedco is different from many other seed companies in that it’s a cooperative owned by its consumers and worker members, who share in the profits through annual dividends.

They’re also one of the few seed companies that specialize in cold-hardy plant varieties (they’re based in the northeast, after all) and their seeds are specially adapted to harsh climates. So if you often struggle with producing a good crop, you’ll be interested in their short-season varieties.

Related: Find First and Last Frost Dates Accurately with This Custom Planting Calendar

I mostly know them for their seed selection, but Fedco also carries seed potatoes, onion sets, trees, and bulbs. They operate seasonally, which helps keep prices low.

Fedco prints three different catalogs for their various divisions. You can request a mail-order catalog, download a PDF version, or shop online.

7. High Mowing Organic Seeds (Wolcott, VT)

High Mowing Organic Seeds is one of the few garden seed companies that is 100 percent certified organic and Non-GMO Project Verified.

They also spearheaded the Safe Seed Pledge in 1999 and recruited nine other seed companies to sign a statement against genetic engineering. (The pledge has since been signed by more than 370 seed companies worldwide, including many on this list.)

High Mowing puts out consistently high-quality vegetable, fruit, herb, and flower seeds every year that are certified organic. (But don’t confuse organic with heirloom—the company sells open-pollinated heirlooms as well as hybrid seeds bred for flavor, yield, and disease resistance.)

Their seed catalog (available by mail and online) is unlike other garden seed catalogs in that it also features personal profiles on the growers, farmers, and gardeners who use their seeds. They’re a great bonus read!

8. Pinetree Garden Seeds (New Gloucester, ME)

Pinetree is new to me as a garden seed company, though they’ve been around for over 40 years. (Disclosure: They’ve sent me free seeds in the past, which is how I was introduced to them.)

I’ve only been using their seeds for the past few years, but have strong germination rates and productive harvests every time, so I feel confident in recommending them.

Pinetree Garden Seeds is a family-owned and operated business with an extensive catalog of vegetable, herb, and flower seeds (over 1,300 varieties), along with live plants, tubers, seed garlic, mushroom logs, gardening supplies, soap-making supplies, tea, spices, and books. It’s a bit mind-boggling how much they carry!

They have an excellent full-color catalog that you can request by mail, or you can browse their PDF catalog online.

9. Filaree Garlic Farm (Okanogan Valley, WA)

This seed company sets itself apart from traditional seed companies in that it specializes in seed garlic, shallot sets, onion sets, seed potatoes, sweet potato slips, and asparagus crowns.

In other words, their “seeds” have already been started for you. I’ve ordered their seed garlic in years past (with great success in growing garlic, harvesting garlic, and curing and storing garlic), and recently planted an asparagus bed with their Purple Passion crowns.

They have one of the best garlic selections I’ve found and once you’ve grown your own, supermarket garlic just feels meh. (But I guess that can be said for everything else you grow yourself!)

Read more: How to Choose the Best Garlic Varieties For Your Garden

Filaree Farm offers both a print and digital catalog, and they take preorders in spring for fall shipment. They do sell out of popular varieties, so start planning your fall garden now because you definitely don’t want to wait until summer to order!

10. Sow True Seed (Asheville, NC)

My obsession with Sow True Seed began when I ordered several bags of cover crop seeds from the company—I really liked the raised bed mixes they offered.

Learn more: Cover Cropping the Easy Way: How to Grow Field Peas for Fertilizer

Then I decided to try planting potato onions and Egyptian walking onions in my perennial vegetable bed, and they were one of the few sites that carried these seeds. Now, I’m eyeing their mushroom plugs, which I’d love to add to a shady spot in my garden.

The worker-owned cooperative prints a rather petite catalog compared to some other companies, but it’s packed with seed varieties ranging from classic to unique: think ground nuts, peanuts, luffa gourds, birdhouse bottle gourds, and other fun things I’m eyeing for my daughter’s school garden! (Not to mention my own.)

Packet of bean seeds

Other great seed companies you should know about

Are there other great seed companies with printed catalogs I should collect? Let me know your favorite sources and I may add them in next year’s update!

Calendula flower seeds

Additional seed resources

This post updated from an article that originally appeared on January 23, 2020.

View the Web Story on the best seed catalogs.

38 Comments

  1. I’m looking to replace my grass with a variety of low growing, low maintenance, perennial native ground covers – seeds and or plants. I live in Zone 5 in northern Michigan. Since I have neighbors on both sides I can’t do invasive plants. I will probably have to go with plugs and seeding as plants are soo expensive and I have to cover a half acre. Any suggestions for a seed or plant catalog?

  2. To add: wild garden seed.
    Great list! I Love so many that you listed, and am excited to order new catalogs from the ones I don’t!!

    Ps: I first discovered your garden Betty blog, because of the purple artichokes from Baker Creek… I was growing them too, and wanted to see what other’s looked like. I would really enjoy hearing a post about if you have tried growing artichokes in OR… I too left CA, and miss my artichokes dearly, and wonder about growing them in a cold climate. I plan to try the “annual” types; I also wonder if the roots could be dug up and stored in a root cellar to be replanted?

  3. Swallowtail Seeds, Victory Seeds, Miss Penn’s Mountain Seeds, True Leaf Seeds, White Harvest, Prairie Road Organic Seed, and Vermont Bean Seed….had great luck with these companies! Thanks for all your articles!

  4. Truelove seeds are my favorite!! They’re local to the Philly area and do so much important work with saving rare and culturally important seeds.

  5. During a normal year I start seeds indoors around this time of year. This year we are shopping for a new home though and not knowing the timing of the move I’m not starting anything. The first place I go for seeds is my freezer. If I want something new I like Baker Creek and they have a retail store over in Petaluma. I also like Kitazawa and Wild Boar Farms. I search Alibaba, Etsy, eBay, Mercari, Amazon and our local community garden too.

  6. I’ve been a Fedco fan for years. I grow in a cold valley in NE PA and Fedco seeds have always done well for me. AND, I use the newsprint catalog to make my seed starting paper pots!

  7. Hat tip for San Diego Seed Company, right in my neck of the woods. They field test all varieties they sell in their local farm to ensure they do well in my climate (zone 10b). So far they’ve had very reliable germination.

  8. Looking for catalogs with, fruit trees and fruit bearing bushes like blueberry and currants for growing in Wisconsin zone 3-4.

      1. 2 catalogs in print I use every year. Totally Tomatoes . . (they have the best tomato and pepper seeds as well as other stuff) and SeedsNSuch. they have nice prices and reasonable variety The owner used to own Totally Tomatoes.

  9. There are many companies on your list that I’ve never heard of. Requesting a few catalogs to enjoy — this year I found several new varieties to try in the Territorial Seed catalog.

  10. I am looking for perennial seeds, specifically, alchemilla mollis, phlox, coreopsis. Do you have a good resource?

    1. Any of these catalogs should have a good selection of perennial seeds. I’ve personally ordered coreopsis and phlox from Baker Creek and Botanical Interests. They might have alchemilla mollis as well.

  11. Renee”s Seed (reneesgarden.com) out of colorado has always been a very good company with every single seed i’ve ever planted sprouting.

    Our local extension service also told me about “wildflower seed” mixes containing noxious things like scotch thistle and to always watch for that.

      1. I totally disagree about Baker’s Farm. I tried their seeds for years and always there is a poor germination rate and even our local organic gardening store agrees.

  12. I made sure to get in my orders early this year! Seed Savers is running about two weeks behind right now. I’m pretty sure I ordered way more than I can fit in my garden LOL.

  13. I’ve been a Seed Savers and Baker Creek fan for many years! I too experienced the Baker Creek website down earlier in the week and was very excited to get on there last night to order seeds — about 1/3 of what I was intending to buy was already out of stock. Buy early, buy now!

      1. 2 catalogs in print I use every year. Totally Tomatoes . . (they have the best tomato and pepper seeds as well as other stuff.)
        the other is SeedsNSuch. They have great prices and reasonable variety. The owner used to own Totally Tomatoes.

  14. Thanks for providing a nice list, people need to know there are a lot of good sources for seeds from smaller businesses. If you look around, you can find a lot of different seeds. One you missed is https://www.growitalian.com/, Seeds from Italy, which has genuine seed packets from Italian sources.

  15. Thank you so much for sharing this info! I just ordered some catalogs. I am new to Baker Creek and Seed Savers Exchange this year. Many, many years ago…over 25, I ordered from Pinetree and Johnny’s, but then got a divorce had to move, then got remarried a couple years later and moved again and a little over 6 yrs ago we had to move back to my home town area. I have been developing my yard and garden all over again so I am excited to see these catalogs again!

        1. There is another seed catalog it’s called strictly medicinal seeds you can Google that God bless it has seeds in it that grow to plants that can heal any nation.

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