Comments regarding TomatoFest.com

At 5:07pm on May 9, 2015, I sent the following email to Tomato Fest, (info@tomatofest.com):
"Hello,

I live in Manassas, Virginia which is USDA zone 7a. Do I still have time to sow and grow your determinate seeds?"

After 3 days without a response, I sent a copy of my first email along with the following on May 12, 2015 at 11:31am:

"This email was sent on may 9, 2015 at 5:07 PM. I am yet to get a response. That is shameful!."

"The following review appeared on the Dave's Garden website:

'On Jan 4, 2010, ncseedsaver Charlotte, NC wrote:
I had a question I emailed to tomatofest and received a reply on a Sunday evening within hours.
Service was excellent, I expect the germination of the seeds will do just as great as the service I received.
Extremely happy doing business with this company!'

What has changed between Jan 4, 2010 and now?

Up to the time of writing of this submission, I have not received a response from Tomato Fest. Needless to say, the small window of opportunity I had to grow determinate tomatoes is now gone.

As a long-time home grower of tomatoes from seed (including many heirloom varieties) I was glad to find TomatoFest's website. However I can't do business with a company that promotes inaccurate and misleading health and scientific information in order to sell its products.

For instance, TomatoFest claims that the lycopene found in tomatoes is "nothing short of amazing, has proven to reduce the risk of prostate cancer in men, is a powerful inhibitor of breast and cervical cancer in women, reduces the risk of lung cancer"

The reality is that lycopene is not "proven" to lower risks of any cancer in humans (clinical trials have shown inconsistent results, and as a result the FDA does not allow companies to make claims of reduced cancer risk in selling lycopene supplements).

TomatoFest, like several other heirloom seed companies makes a big deal out of not selling GMO varieties. But I know of zero GMO tomatoes on the commercial market, much less any sold to home gardeners, so this is an empty marketing ploy (a separate issue is TomatoFest's claim of testing every variety it sells to ensure no genetic modification has taken place (with 600 varieties, one wonders how they afford to do such extensive genetic testing and stay in business).
Although maybe the expense of whatever testing they actually do explains why they require a $15 minimum order.

No thanks.

I ordered at least 10 different seeds varieties from this company.
The germination was so poor: only 25%.
I had about 90% germination success with seeds planted at the same time from other companies.

"On Jan 20, 2013 5:11 PM, TomatoFest.com responded with:

Such a poor germination rate for the whole of his 10 varieties would indicate that some damage occurred either in the delivery or storage of his seeds. We find no record of having any seed customer from Irving TX, where this gardener says he is from, in order to review these varieties. In that part of the country it's possible that seeds in storage could have been exposed to conditions that would have compromised the seed quality. Generally our customers would alert us personally if they had ANY difficulty with their seeds, since our seeds are guaranteed for quality. But we have not been notified. Had we been notified, we would have immediately sought to find the source of the problem and replaced his order in full, regardless of the reason for the germination problem. We've even replaced seed, when the "dog ate my seeds," or "my seeds were lost in the flood before I had the chance to plant them, or " the seeds I bought from you 6 years ago and stored in my garage didn't germinate.""

Planted 3 different variety of tomato seeds and had 50% or less germination from all three. Other seeds purchased from another company planted at the same time have 99% germination.

Ordered quite a few heirloom vars from this company last fall. Planted them going on 4 weeks ago now, and have only got 2 vars that sprouted at all, and a very poor germination ratio. So disappointed.. The seed trays were in a warm greenhouse with plenty of humidity, and other viable seeds have sprouted no problems.

I just tried to order seeds from Tomatofest, after poring over its website at great length. Looks so good; but only when I tried to order seeds was I informed that I must make a minimum order of $15 to buy items from this company. Nowhere on Tomatofest's homepage or in the instructions for using the online catalogue of seeds is this minimum purchase mentioned. I realize that websites and online use of credit cards cost money, and Tomatofest is within its rights to impose a minimum order so that it can turn a profit. But I think that the owner should be upfront about the minimum purchase requirement. I subsequently ordered less than $15 of organic, heirloom tomato seeds from another company that does not have a minimum purchase requirement.