New York Renovator » seeds

High Mowing Seeds Company is Totally Cool

Mrs. Mecomber — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 00:10:55 +0000

Whoa.

The folks at High Mowing Seeds in Vermont saw my post where I said that I was happy with the organic seeds, but I was not so happy with the shipping packaging. Guess what? They emailed me. I am IMPRESSED. In this day and age when many companies couldn’t care less about customer satisfaction, High Mowing Seeds actually LISTENED to what I said and then they go the second mile to make me happy.

WHOA.

This is what they said:

Hi, Rebecca:

Someone here at High Mowing came across your recent blog post and brought it to my attention. First of all, thanks for your seed order and for making the commitment to supporting an independently-owned, 100% organic seed company! Second of all, I’m really sorry that you weren’t satisfied with the shipment of your seeds.

We have two goals in selecting the packaging we use to ship you seeds. One is to make sure the seed is well protected and gets to you intact. The second is to select packaging that has a small environmental footprint. We are proud to say that the packaging we use to mail you your seeds is made from recycled content and is itself completely recyclable. However, from your description, it sounds like our shipping staff may have put a few too many seed packets in the envelope and we didn’t quite meet the first of our shipping goals. Our customers’ satisfaction is important to us, and so I’m happy to offer you free shipping on your next order. [they sent me a promo coupon]

Also, please let me know if any of the packs of seeds were damaged in shipment, and we’d be happy to send you a follow-up item.

Our shipping and handling rates are based on the dollar amount of your order, which is the best way we have of estimating the cost to process and ship an order (assuming the more seed a customer buys, the more the order will cost to processes and ship). Unfortunately, this can get skewed when a customer buys more high-value seed, which increases the dollar amount of an order without necessarily increasing the shipment weight. This is partly what happened in your case, with some of the larger packet sizes that you ordered. We’re always rethinking how we do things, so I’m happy to be reminded of this issue to see if it’s something we can improve upon.

I hope that some of this helps to improve your experience with High Mowing Organic Seeds. I think you’ll find our seeds to be of great quality. Happy planting and hope you have an abundant season!

I am honored. Really. First, that this company checks up on and CARES about their reputation. Second, that they are reaching out to me this way.

I haven’t tried any of the seeds yet (it snowed yesterday!), but I will be planting them either this week or the next. If the seeds are anything like the customer service, I think my garden will be beautiful.

Check out High Mowing Seeds. So far, the company TOTALLY ROCKS.

High Mowing Seeds Company is Totally Cool

Original eloquence at New York Renovator.com. This content is copyrighted, so no stealing! Don't make me angry, you don't want to see me when I'm angry!

Buying Seeds Online

Mrs. Mecomber — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:59:38 +0000

I’m a little late in my garden-planning this year. I usually have the beds all mapped out by February. But it’s been a tad busy here and I haven’t even thought about gardening yet! :-O

But now I am starting to gear up. I’m going to keep things simple this year. Whereas I exprimented with some new varieties last year (like Adirondack red potatoes), I’m going to plug in good ol’ white potatoes, basic zucchini and yellow squash, leaf spinach, etc. All the boring but yummy stuff.

While I was thinking about buying my seeds, I figured I’d share with you some of my seed-purchasing resources. I usually order my seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, but due to budget constraints and no specialty gift cards this year, I’m going to go with bargain seeds. Here’s a listing of some good seed companies to buy seeds.

Johnny’s Selected Seeds (they tend to be a little pricey, but they do have sales– and their quality is amazing)
Burpee (I’ve never ordered from them online before, but I’ve purchased them locally; I’m going with Burpee this year)
Henry Fields Seeds (I’ve never ordered from them, but they look good)
National Arbor Day Foundation (they have trees and shrubs, fruit trees, etc)
Park Seed Company (new to me, but they look good)

If you know of any great seed/plant stores, please feel free to share in the comments section!

Buying Seeds Online

Original eloquence at New York Renovator.com. This content is copyrighted, so no stealing! Don't make me angry, you don't want to see me when I'm angry!

Growing Challenge: Hardening Off

Mrs. Mecomber — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:06:08 +0000

My little seedlings are growing! And I’m about halfway through the period spent in hardening off the plants. After raising them indoors, I can’t just throw the little babes out into the cruel New York State world. They need time to acclimate to our cool days and very chilly nights. I’m hoping that by May 12th I can get these babies in the ground. You can see that the squash is already too big for its britches.

The threat of frost is still here, probably for another week. We did have frost last week, and some weathermen are calling for the chance of it this week. We had a hot start to our spring, and now we’re back to “spring” temperatures!

In the vegetable garden, the peas and spinach are just starting to show through the earth. I’ll snap a photo when they are larger.

Growing Challenge: Hardening Off

Original eloquence at New York Renovator.com. This content is copyrighted, so no stealing! Don't make me angry, you don't want to see me when I'm angry!

Growing Challenge: Planting Seeds

Mrs. Mecomber — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:58:56 +0000

Well, I did get SOMETHING done this week! I planted the first tray of 72 peat pots. I’m behind schedule right now. I have another tray of seeds to plant. In the near future, I have to get a roto-tiller and till the garden beds. It’s still too cool to set plants out. Last year I jumped the gun and planted seeds (I’ve always done direct planting before this year) April 25th. We had two frosts about that time, but everything made it. This year, I don’t think I’ll risk it. It’s very cool yet and Upstate New York is still full of surprises. Snow is even forecast for this evening.

Well, here’s what I did. I bought the little peat pucks (as I call them). They are dried up and shriveled and look just like checkers. With the addition of water, they swell up. Once they are moist, seeds can be planted. The instructions say to plant the seeds twice as deep as the length of the seeds themselves.

I planted the pansies first. Those are mighty tiny seeds, almost as small as weight loss pills, wouldn’t you say?

But then I opened the nicotania packet, and WHOA! Those are tiny seeds! I couldn’t even handle them. I couldn’t “plant” such tiny seeds, it was more like “sprinkling” them. We’ll see how they turn out. Hmm.

I needed something larger. My hands were killing me by this point. Ahhh good ole New England pumpkin seeds! Much better.

I also planted cantaloupe. And that’s all I did! Next up will be the yellow squash, basil, cauliflower, and Marigolds.

Growing Challenge: Planting Seeds

Original eloquence at New York Renovator.com. This content is copyrighted, so no stealing! Don't make me angry, you don't want to see me when I'm angry!