Have you checked the reviews of them over on the Rate & Review Vendors forum? They do get some mixed reviews both here and on other forums for their ordering policies and methods and their first come, first served shipping issues. They basically shut down for Nov. and December.

" ut I want to make sure I order at the right time to get “fresh” new crop seed, and not leftover spring 2017 seed."

I assume you understand that seed that is marked as "Packaged for 2018" does not mean it was just grown in 2017? So that shouldn't affect when you place your order. Seed vendors are not required to sell only seed from the previous year's crop, never have been, and in many cases it would be impossible for them to do so. The seed must only pass the germination rate testing to be sold for 2018 regardless of when it was produced.

Dave

Just a few of the many discussions about Fedco the search pulls up:

http://www.gardenweb.com/gardenweb/query/Fedco-/topic=cornucop

I mostly worried about onion seeds, which is about the only one that loses significant viability that quickly.

I order a great many seeds from Fedco and REALLY like them.

I've been ordering Fedco seeds for several years as part of a group order for additional discount. I'm lousy at growing onions and leeks so can't give an opinion. I had to looks at different parts of their website to figure out the answer to your question about onion seeds and shipping. They only ship seeds January thru October and then take a break to prepare the next year's catalog. Hence, you can send in an order but shipping doesn't start until January 4: We begin daily shipping of seed orders on Jan. 4, 2017. We pull and ship orders according to the date we receive them. No special rush service. From early May through early November, we ship twice a week, usually Tuesday and Thursday.

You could send in your order in November to get early ship date based on when your order is received. But you would also miss knowing what's new for 2018. Perhaps since you are in MD, northern grown seeds and shipping times won't work for you.

"I mostly worried about onion seeds, which is about the only one that loses significant viability that quickly."

True to a degree but they can't ship you onion seeds that don't pass the 80% viability tests. And even onion seed can be viable for several years if stored properly (which we have to assume they do). The issue is that its germination % falls off much faster than other seeds. Theoretically if a packet contains 1000 seeds 800-900 would germinate in year 1 but 600-700 would still germinate in year 2. So it isn't a matter of 100% vs. 0% unless one only plants a few seeds.

Dave

I have philosophical differences with Fedco, so it is not a company that I use. They do seem to have a decent selection of onion varieties. My Favorite for onions is New England Seed http://www.neseed.com/Articles.asp?ID=142&Click=33992. They usually run a special offer in the fall with free shipping. http://www.neseed.com/Onion-Seeds-s/295.htm

As a gardener, I like Fedco for some things.

parsinps are worse in viability to onions.

I haven't ordered from them yet, but I know people on another garden site that seem to have a high opinion of them. I'm pretty new to growing onions, but I really like the Crimson Forest bunching onion seeds I got from Reimer Seeds. They had what seemed to be a high germination rate in clay soil in partial shade (a pack of Southport Red Globe onion seeds from another vendor didn't have a single seed sprout in it from the whole pack; garlic chives from a completely different vendor had a few sprout there from a whole pack, but not many). I'm not saying Reimer Seeds is the best for onions, but I definitely had a good experience with Crimson Forest bunching onions specifically there. Crimson Forest seems to multiply yearly, too, and the bulbs can get up to two inches wide without special treatment. They get lots of nice, tall, tasty greens in the spring, and are cold hardy.

Shule - count yourself as lucky that you had a good experience ordering from Reimer seeds. I and a multitude of others have had bad experiences. They get a lot of negative reviews on Garden Watchdog with reports of poor or no germination, seed that is not true to variety, lousy and rude customer service, etc.

Don't worry. I read the reviews before I ever made my first order there (I've ordered I think three times). When did you order? It seems most of the negative ones (when I checked, which was probably 2015; I'm checking them again) were pretty old, but I'm curious about your experience.

Update: Yep, they've got a number of new negative reviews, and I don't see any new positive reviews. I've had good experiences, though, but I didn't have anything go wrong with my orders that I needed to contact them about, other than wanting to add new items to my order (which wasn't allowed, but they refunded my order so I could order again).

I order most of my stuff from Baker Creek, though, but I shop around all over for what I'm looking for (not just at one place).

Shule - I ordered from Reimer in February 2016. I only ordered 4 things, 2 types of peppers and 2 types of cucumbers. The Cornito Giallo pepper seeds grew into some type of small orange bell rather than the expected bulls horn shape. I got maybe 25% germination on the H19 Little leaf cuke seeds.

I try to stick with Johnny's selected seeds for most of my seeds anymore. I've had zero problems with germination or seeds being true to type from them.

farmerdill, I don't wish to put you on the spot, but I'm curious... what is it about Fedco that makes for a philosophical difference?

One reason that causes curiosity, and I really don't know enough about Fedco, is here in Tn., as far as I know, every county has a 'Farmer's Coop'. I read on the Fedco website that they are a cooperative. I have no idea if there's similarity, and I don't know if your difference with them is on the coop issue, but our Farmer's Coops seem to be pretty good institutions. They sell seed, but they also sell many other farm needs. They do differ a little from county to county, but they are the same institution.

I like coops in general and have used Southern States Cooperative for over 70 years. https://www.southernstates.com/catalog/default.aspx. My differences with Fedco relate to the coop's political posturing which has been toned down in recent years, but with so many good vendors to deal with they are very low on my list.

Thanks for the response, farmerdill. I don't get involved in politics, but there are definitely people and businesses from whom I withhold my support.

Fedco has been highly against things like Mionsanto...GMO and modern farming. I understand farmerdill's objection. I am kinda inbetween.

*backs away*

This looks like maybe it's about to get interesting. Does Houzz have a policy on discussing politics? I checked for what I could find, and the acceptable use policy is all I found. I'm not sure that it forbids any topics we've been discussing or that people look like they're about to discuss, but it does say to avoid actions that "… are libelous, defamatory, threatening, harassing, invasive of privacy, abusive, tortious, hateful, discriminatory, pornographic or obscene; …"

A lot of the political and GMO discussion out there might go under a few of those categories, but if people can be civil, or not overly overt and defensive/offensive about their opinions, I think a lot of it can be in line with the policy. Nevertheless, stuff like politics is often forbidden to be discussed on forums, for good reason. As much as I'm not a corporate pesticide/herbicide/GMO company fan, I think a lot of us can agree that it's against the rules to defame a company on these forums, whether or not we think what we're saying is true. Same for defaming anti-GMO organizations/people. Stating differences of opinion I think can be fine. Anyway, I'm not trying to tell people what they can or can't do. I'm just trying to make the policy (whatever it is) a little more visible, and advertise it some, and give my impression of what it means. They can interpret it how they will, I guess. I'm not saying anyone has defamed anyone, yet, in the sense they mean, although I'm unclear on whether talking about bad results/reviews with a company falls under that, as it seems like something that a lot of people would do a lot (I'm just concerned about the future with the GMO and politics stuff). It sounds like we should give Houzz some feedback on some updates to the policy that might make more sense for Gardenweb. They might listen.

Shule - venture over to the Hot Topics forum on GW and you will get all of the politics you will ever need and then some. The Organic Gardening forum has all sorts of GMO debates and Monsanto bashing threads and the Rate and Review Vendors forum has some pretty negative things to say about several seed vendors.

Thanks for the information. I've mostly just used a few of these forums so far (although I've been using them since a while before Houzz obtained Gardenweb).