Bettina, I'm sooo sorry about your nightmarish experience. Wow what a loco that person turned out to be. Collecting those treasures took so much time and effort and I can feel your pain.

I'm sure you've already heard of Seeds of Diversity. It's another way to restore your seeds. For $30 you will get the opportunity to exchange seed from various contributors across Canada. I just started growing heirloom tomatoes this year and so won't be much of help to you until the end of the season.

Again sorry to hear of your misadventures.

Ianna

Hi Bettina, I'm terribly sorry to read about your bad experience. I'm relatively new to this forum and I'm incredibly impressed by the interaction in this and other GW forums. All I have experienced so far is very positive: I have been given a lot by fellow GW members. People have gone out of their way to give me advice. I have received free seeds from a clivia grower in BC. I have received a pomegranate cutting from another gardener in Florida. After much investigation a nursery owner in Georgia gave me the address of a nursery in Montreal that would be selling the bulbs that he could not send me due to importing restrictions. These are but a few of the things other gardeners have done for me. In a nutshell, there is such a wonderful camaraderie in this place that it makes me sick to have to accept the fact that greed and selfishness could make someone destroy the labour of love and perseverance of another gardener. I'm sorry Bettina and I wish I could help you in any practical way, be by sending you some seeds or by directing you where you could get them. Alas! I'm just a beginner and quite often I do not know where to start, thus, I'm totally useless right now. If you name any particular variety of HT, I will try to find it for you. To this I can commit.
Fortunately for us we have Ianna, who is very knowledgeable and generous with everybody. Thanks Ianna, I also benefited from your advice!
I know that it will be an ardous taks, but eventually you will restore your collection. It is encouraging to sense that you are not giving up and that you are set to replace those seeds, rather sooner than later. Unfortunately, you have lost more than seeds and I hope that your trust in your fellow GW friends is not shattered by this disagreable experience.
Please keep us posted as how things go! Thanks!

consentida

*nodding* I knew gardeners would understand. No, it's not the end of the world. Yes, I can buy tomatoes in a grocery (no budget for plants this year...c'est la vie). But...they were MY 'MATERS, dammit! And - ouch! - my Opalka, Amish Paste, Isis Candy, Sasha's Altai, and Golden Queen Jubilee took forever to find and now they're compost. AARRGGHH!!!

IANNA - I had heard of the place, but I didn't know they had a "seed-swap" sort of forum. I'll definitely look into it this fall. The price is a little out of my range right now (short-term financial stuff...it'll pass, of course), but it's always good to know about other sources. Diane's Seeds is also pretty low-price, and she's an amazing source of variety, advice, and just plain good-person-ness. As are so many GW peoples.

And I like your word: LOCO! The woman's living in her own universe. Today I actually DID have to call the RCMP and find out about restraining orders (although they call it something different - I'm confused already!). I don't owe her money or material or anything; there is no reason for her to keep harassing me....but that doesn't stop her.

I think, Buddha help us, that this is one of THOSE people: she "knows" she's RIGHT, and can't rest until the rest of the world "knows" it too. EEEEEK!

consentida - It's an easy place to be impressed by...and frequented by impressive people. Almost all of my HT seeds (over 90%) were gifts or SASE; I wouldn't even have HEARD about these many varieties. Val (I don't know if she's still around - hope so!) really got me hooked, generously sharing her HT stores. Mita - are you ready for this? - actually airmailed me a half-dozen tomatoes one year when my DH managed to cook (literally) almost all of my tomato plants in the greenhouse. Where else can you find such an incredible group of people?

Sure, there are some bad GW experiences. A few years ago, I heard from a family in Calgary (I'm near Edmonton). They asked for perennials to fill a totally bare new garden. I spent a week digging and packing over 2 dozen types of plants - from Columbine to Lungwort - and sent them down. I felt great: my plants were well-traveled!

A few weeks later I wrote to keep in touch. The reply was a 2-page rant about the "horrible plants" I sent. They weren't in nursery packages (of course not: they were from my garden!), they weren't "pretty enough", they didn't arrive with big flowers and pretty tags. So they threw out everything and bought "pretty" things (read: pricey hothouse stuff) for a "real" garden.

That was one of the rare occasions where I was just....speechless. And grateful that such nitwits were VERY MUCH the exception on GW, NOT the rule!

It's going to take time and money to put my little seed-bank back together. Ok: so be it. My health isn't great, and that's a bit of a hurdle. But if Mita and Val/Grungy and the others (and I hope you're still out there, lovely ladies) can go to such lengths to try and ease the horror of the "Honey, I Cooked The Kids" incident, I'm sure not going to let one nutbar psycho-twit forever ruin almost a decade's worth of careful work.

And it's especially nice to know there's a place I can go and snarl about things like this....and people will understand how some seeds and dirt and greenstuff can really matter to someone.

Welcome to GardenWeb. You'll like it here. :)

- Bettina

My goodness, what a horrible situation! I hope it works out for you! Here's where I've ordered my seeds in the past, I don't know if they're a good price but I'll pass the info on just incase. Good luck!!

http://www.terraedibles.ca/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=TE&Category_Code=TOM

http://www.cottagegardener.com/index.cfm/action/catalog/catalog/list/cat/35/cfid/3889613/cftoken/60597036.cfm

(((Bettina))) what a heartbreaker, I save seeds of a few things mostly beans but bought a couple of open pollinated tomato varieties this year. I'm growing 'Cheerio' and 'Snow White' cherry tomatoes and another called 'Goliath' if these interest you send me an email. Most gardeners are helpful and trusting so when one gets stung like you did it's like a stab in the back. Can you give us a list of the varieties you've lost, maybe some of us can help you get the ones you've lost back.

Annette... a firm believer on what goes around comes around.

Hi Bettina,

I got an email from a Winter Sower who saw your post and wrote to me asking to offer you some advice.

First let me say that I feel sorry that you were let down by this individual. It sounds like this person did not know exactly what the duties involved would be. Sadly, it's a hard lesson learned for both of you. If this person continues to harass you then definitely seek assistance from the authorities. If you do a team effort again get it all down on paper as to who does what and when, make lots of copies and everyone signs every copy.

I do run an open-to-the-public tomato seedbank. I share OP toms. Many are donated to me, a good many I grow on my own, and I also purchase bulk seed stock. I do all the seed packing and labeling myself. 99% of my seeds are distributed to US Citizens. Once in a while I get a request for seeds from another country--it requires more postage and more time and honestly, it can be a hassle unless the person requesting is friendly and nice, then I don't mind much the extra work. If you start a seedbank I suggest that you limit it to Canadians because it will be simpler for you. You're doing the work, you are the boss of you. Make life simple for yourself and set limitations from the very beginning--otherwise you're a doormat. Being a doormat is never a good thing.

I'm very careful about the seeds I accept. They have to be fermented or cleaned with a sani-scrub. Because I'm distributing some shared seeds I don't want to also be possibly distributing any pathogens that may be on the exterior of the seeds, I'm very serious about that responsibility. As as a matter of fact, when I do send anyone tomato seeds they come in a brochure that shows the sani-scrub method. I also have the method at WinterSown.Org

How to Clean Tomato Seeds (Sani-Scrub)

And, if you visit the GW Seed Saving Forum FAQs or google "How to save tomato seeds" you will find the tomato fermentation FAQ I wrote years back. So, I'm definitely serious on sharing seeds that have been cleaned well enough to reduce or eliminate exterior seed-borne pathogens. Fermentation and the sani-scrub will both do that for you. I prefer the sani-scrub because it takes 35 minutes--and you get a half-hour break in there too. Fermentation takes at least three days. Ick. Fermentation is an organic process and the sani-scrub uses bleach-based kitchen scrubbing powder (Ajax. Comet, et al) People who prefer organic methods can ferment. Either way, the risk of sharing exterior-borne tomato pathogens is hugely reduced.

I'll paste in a link below to the "Your Choice Tomato SASE" so you can see how I list the seeds. I require a printout from my website. The requester fills it in and sends it with a two-stamp SASE. I send it back with the seeds and the sani-scrub brochure. No printout then no seeds. I had to do that because the list was showing up on freebie sites. I wasn't getting traffic to my website, people weren't learning about germinating tomato seeds with Winter Sowing, yada yada yada, printout is now required. I also like the printout because people write neatly--HOORAY! The printout also has a calendar date on it and I impose a week's time limit--mail it within a week of the printout or its void. Again, this helps prevent abuse from freebie sites--also, I update that list weekly, sometimes daily. I don't like to disappoint people because they've sent me a request for seeds from a stale list, then I have to make substitutes or complete replacements if I'm also out of a default choice. Freebie abuse makes me feel like a doormat. I'm a nice person, I'm not a doormat.

I do not contract for seeds. I don't give seeds to people to grow out and then get back the seeds they save. I am the boss of myself and I am responsible for myself. Real life happens to everyone--crops fail, people go sour, something somewhere goes screwy. Anything can happen. So, my seedbank is based only on what I grow, what I buy, and what has been donated. The list changes as varieties are exhausted and/or I add new ones. Right now it fluctuates between 100 and 120 vareites. I do have some previous seed donators that I know are growing some of their tomatoes with the intention of saving those seeds to donate to WinterSown for inclusion on the list, but until those seeds are here they are pie in the sky. They happen when they happen. And only after they've been packed and labeled do they go on the list.

I imagine that if you look around Canadian seed company websites you can find seeds in bulk amounts. Here, in the States, I order bulk from a few different companies. I like GourmetSeed International, Totally Tomatoes, Tomato Growers Supply, and NEseed. Gourmet and NE have great prices and they also ship very quickly. Unfortunately, I do not know if they ship across the border. If you're going to maintain a seedbank you can't do it on donations or your own stock alone, you need bulk stock that will be the backbone of your seedbank. Does it cost money? Yes, some, but not a hurtful amount. People that send a small monetary donation get extra seeds--they get their six first choices and the four defaults. Those donations add up and do pay for bulk seed stock and even some of the office supplies. I'll never make a nickel off of what I do (now that's pie in the sky) but those small donations have taken a lot of the "sting" out of running WinterSown.Org.

Hope this helps.

Kindly,

Trudi Davidoff
WinterSown.Org

Here is a link that might be useful: Your Choice Tomato SASE

I must say I am not surprised. I grow a small number of heirloom tomatoes for us at home. My family and a few neighbors. Few of the people who get some seedlings never save the seeds. Even though I explain over and over how to do it. I emphasize to all who know me how important saving seeds is to all of us. I don't know if anybody even hears me. I am sixty six, still work and try to grow many different things in the garden and people comment how I work a lot. Many who pass by my garden wouldn't do this work. I just don't know what to think. It is planting and nurturing every living thing that is going to save us and the rest of the world. So I will continue to look after my God's little acre and hope others will see value in doing this kind of work.

merricat, Seeds of Diversity does require membership to request seeds, but Seed Savers Exchange in the States doesn't. You have to get hold of the Yearbook, though, as it is not on-line. The Yearbook lists members who have seeds to offer - there is one in Alberta. She will have a copy of the Yearbook. Unlisted members (like me, but I'm in Montreal) also have copies of the Yearbook but we're harder to find. The Yearbook lists thousands of (names of) varieties of tomatoes.

merricat,

What a nightmare!

I only grow a small number of heirlooms. This year I have Meme Beauce, Brown Berry, Mrs. Bott's Italian, and Kellogg's Breakfast. I'll gather seeds and gladly share any of these with you.

I'll also check to see if there are any Lebanese Pink left from last year (I gave my seeds to my Dad to sow).

Let me know if you're interested in any of these varieties.