The Best Online Sources for Heirloom Seeds

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Bean pods and seeds scattered on a board.

Heirloom seeds are becoming increasingly more popular, but even so, they can often be difficult to find in garden centers and other places that sell gardening supplies and seeds. And even if you are able to find a few heirloom seeds, the selection is usually nowhere near as large as what you can find when you shop online. So today I wanted to share a few of my favorite online stores that I consider to be the best online sources for heirloom seeds.

As I’ve mentioned before in a previous post about reasons for trying heirloom seeds, I love using heirloom seeds in my garden, and my garden is actually almost exclusively heirlooms now. One of the main reasons why I love heirloom seeds is because I love history and I find it really exciting to be able to taste the same varieties of vegetables that were grown in previous centuries. And another reason why I love heirlooms so much is because you can save your own seeds to plant again the next year unlike with hybrid seeds.

And another great thing about heirloom seeds is that you can try so many really unique and interesting varieties of vegetables that you’ll never find in a grocery store or even at most farm stands. That’s where this list came from actually, because I’ve done a LOT of online researching in the past to find specific hard-to-find heirloom varieties and along the way I discovered a lot of really great heirloom seed sources. And now I want to share them with you!

The Best Online Sources for Heirloom Seeds

There are dozens of different places to find heirloom seeds online, so it’s really hard to narrow them down and the term “best” is really pretty subjective. So these sources are the ones that I would personally consider to be some of the best online sources for heirloom seeds (although there are dozens of other great ones too!)

Note: While all of these companies offer heirloom seeds, a few of them also offer hybrid seeds as well so they are not all exclusively heirloom seeds. And while hybrid seeds aren’t my personal preference because I love heirlooms, hybrid seeds are NOT the same as GMO seeds. So hybrid seeds can still be a perfectly good choice if you want a natural and non-GMO garden.

1) SeedsNOW!

Offers vegetable, flower, and herb seeds
All seeds are heirloom, open-pollinated, and non-GMO
Supports the Safe Seed Pledge

SeedsNOW! is one of the places I recommend to beginner gardeners because they have a lot of guides and information to help beginners decide which type of seeds will do the best in their particular garden, how to plant and care for the seeds, etc.

They don’t have a huge selection of seeds like some other seed companies do, but they still have a very decent selection of heirlooms, and if you’re a beginner who doesn’t want to be overwhelmed with options then they’re a great choice. I also love the fact that they offer sample packs for cheap prices which not too many seed companies offer, so if you want to try some varieties out without investing a lot of money you have that option. (And they also often offer deals for free shipping and/or coupon codes too!)

2) Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

Offers vegetable, flower, and herb seeds as well as a few live plants
All seeds are heirloom, open-pollinated, and non-GMO
Seeds are untreated but not officially certified organic
Supports the Safe Seed Pledge

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is probably one of the biggest heirloom seed companies that I know of. They have a really huge selection of different heirlooms (over 2,000 varieties of vegetables, flowers, and herbs!)

And, in addition to all of the most popular heirloom varieties, they also have a lot of unique and exotic varieties that you might not find easily elsewhere. So if you’re looking for some unusual vegetable varieties from all different parts of the world and different time periods in history, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is a great source to check out. (They also often offer free shipping too!)

You can find Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds here:

3) Seed Savers Exchange

Offers vegetable, herb, and flower seeds along with trees and transplants
Focuses on rare heirloom, open-pollinated seeds because of the variety of growers involved in the Exchange, seeds aren’t all certified non-GMO.
Many seeds are grown organically, but not all seeds are officially certified organic.
Supports the Safe Seed Pledge

Seed Savers Exchange is a bit different from the typical online seed company. Seed Savers Exchange has a large seed bank dedicated to preserving heirloom varieties of seeds, and their collection comes from hundreds of backyard gardeners with seeds that have been passed down through the generations.

Seed Savers Exchange offers you two options for finding seeds. First, you can visit the “Shop” section where you can find a small selection of interesting heirloom varieties to buy directly from their website. Or, you can create a free account and visit the “Exchange” section to find a HUGE selection of heirloom seeds from gardeners all across the country. If there’s a rare or hard to find variety that you’ve been looking for, there’s a very good chance that you might be able to find someone on the exchange listing those seeds for sale!

You can find Seed Savers Exchange here:

4) Victory Seeds

Offers vegetable, herb, and flower seeds
All seeds are heirloom, open-pollinated, and non-GMO
Seeds are Certified Naturally Grown
Supports the Safe Seed Pledge

Victory Seeds is a small, family-run company that offers a good selection of old-fashioned heirloom seeds. One thing that I really appreciate about Victory Seeds is the historical information that they offer in the descriptions for many of their seed varieties. As someone who loves history, I’m always looking to find the historical details about heirloom seed varieties and it drives me a little bit crazy when seed companies give just a vague description with no reference at all to the historical background of the seeds. So I love the fact that Victory Seeds makes the effort to give that information when it’s available.

You can find Victory Seeds here:

5) Monticello Seed Shop

Offers vegetable, herb, and flower seeds
Seeds are heirloom and open-pollinated but not officially certified non-GMO

The Monticello Seed Shop offers the same varieties of seeds that would have been historically correct for the period when Thomas Jefferson was planting his gardens at his Monticello home. While the selection of seeds available is much smaller than what you would find on a typical online seed store, the Monticello Seed Shop is the perfect place for history lovers to find unique early American seed varieties, and I found a couple of varieties of pea seeds that I couldn’t find from other companies.

You can find the Monticello Seed Shop here:

6) Johnny’s Selected Seeds

Offers vegetable, herb, flower, and fruit seeds and plants
All seeds are non-GMO and some seeds are certified organic
Offers both heirloom and hybrid seeds
Supports the Safe Seed Pledge

Johnny’s Selected Seeds is a 100% employee-owned company that offers a wide variety of vegetable, herb, and flower seeds, and they also offer some live plants too. They do offer some hybrid seeds as well as heirlooms, so if you are looking exclusively for heirloom seeds then you’ll have to do some sifting through their website to find the heirlooms. But if you know specific varieties that you want then it’s worth checking them out because they have a large selection of seeds to choose from. They’re also a good option if you want to plant organic seeds because many of their seeds are Certified Organic.

You can find Johnny’s Selected Seeds here:

7) Fedco Seeds

Offers vegetable, herb, and flower seeds as well as bulbs and trees
All seeds are non-GMO and some seeds are Certified Organic
Offers both heirloom and hybrid seeds
Supports the Safe Seed Pledge

Fedco Seeds is a bit different than the usual seed company because they are a cooperative so profit isn’t their main goal. They offer a wide variety of seeds that you can get either in small amounts or in bulk. While they offer hybrid seeds as well as heirloom seeds, they do have a category on their seed page that allows you to browse just the heirloom seeds. You can also browse though just the organic seeds as well, so the way their website is designed makes it easy to search for what you want.

You can find Fedco Seeds here:

8) Territorial Seed Company

Offers vegetable, herb, and flower seeds as well as some live plants
Offers both heirloom and hybrid seeds
All seeds are non-GMO and are sustainably grown although not all are officially certified organic
Supports the Safe Seed Pledge

The Territorial Seed Company is a family-owned company that offers a large selection of vegetable, herb and flower seeds, and they also offer some live plants as well. They do sell both heirloom and hybrid seeds, but they way their website is organized makes it easy to find the heirlooms. They also have a page just for the varieties that are organic as well, so you can easily find those specific varieties without having to search too much.

You can find the Territorial Seed Company here:

Want Even More Seed Options?

If you’re looking for even more places to find good quality heirloom seeds, check out these seed lists from my blogging friends. They have some of the same seed companies that I listed, but they also have a few others that aren’t on my list too: