Saturday, March 22, 2014

Lowe's and The Home Depot's Seeds

 I've done a bunch of research about two common stores to buy seeds, Lowe's and The Home Depot. Though they are very large stores and have large areas for garden supply, they provide a relatively small selection of seeds. Also, the starters offered by both stores can not be trusted since the companies do not list where they bought their seeds.


Lets start off with The Home Depot and their vegetable and herb seeds. Their brands include:

Bad Companies 
  • Burpee 
  • Ferry-Morse 
  • Miracle Gro- Partially owned or in partnership with Monsanto
  • AeroGarden- Partnership and partially owned by MiracleGro  
Looks Ok (No GMOs)
  • Stover
Suspicious 
  • Milpero*  
  • Amber's Garden*  
*Couldn't find much info whatsoever online.


Lowe's has a little less of a selection in vegetable and herb seeds, here are their brands:

Bad Companies 
  • Ferry-Morse 
  • Burpee
  • Pennington  
Suspicious
  • Seeds of Change - Owned by Mars Corporation (owns mainly candy companies)  
 Although these stores are a great quick stop to pick up some seeds or flowers, refrain from buying seeds or starters from these giants and instead make an effort to support small local farms you can trust.

2 comments:

  1. Hey Adira, I was looking into the company Burpee and they claim to be non gmo. what have you found to disprove this, specifically. Thanks

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  2. Hi Christa, that's a really good question. There are a few reasons not to trust Burpee. What I find the most suspicious is that Burpee's name is absent from the Safe Seed Pledge, when they have been asked for years to sign it. The safe seed pledge is a list of non-GMO farms created by the Council for Responsible Genetics (CRG). The second reason that Burpee should be avoided is that they don't disclose where they get their seeds from. And really, look at this tomato from Burpee and tell me it's not GMO! http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/tomatoes/beefsteak/tomato-steakhouse-hybrid-prod003442.html
    (A tomato vine is not designed to hold this size of fruit, it would need a tree branch to hold this kind of weight!) The bottom line is, in this day and age we can't just take someone's word that they are safe, we need real certifications from trust worthy organizations (not the government). In the case of Burpee all we have is the owner's word, and that really isn't anything to go on.

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