Comments regarding Tomato Growers Supply Co.

I am a commercial grower in Oklahoma and was a customer of TGS for many years. I enthusiastically recommended them as a reliable source for quality seeds... until now. This year I ordered over $100 in seeds. Some of my long-time favorites had jumped up in price, or the quantities had decreased, but I still placed an order. Three weeks later, as I was planting the seeds, I found three packages that were short in count. I sent an email to TGS and received a snippy reply, stating that I had complained about a shortage some years before! What the heck does that have to do with it? These three packages were short! Well, in about a week, I received the shorted seeds, very carefully counted, in hand-written envelopes. Do I need to say that not a single one of these replacements germinated? Not one. Linda, the previous owner, was all about the customer. The new folks seem to be all about losing customers. And they have now lost me.

"On Apr 9, 2019 3:00 PM, Tomato Growers Supply Co. responded with:

As the grower stated, she had complained many times in the past of shortage. In every instance we provided replacement seed and apparently that was not enough. Our employees had noted her as a "difficult" customer from prior engagements. The comment about replacements not germinating is completely inaccurate. She never commented to us about the replacements not germinating. We are very sorry that she is unhappy. We really tried to help her. We wish her well in the future."

This year (2013) was the second or third year that I have ordered from TGS. Nothing but problems in 2013. I ordered several varieties of tomato seeds and Brown Habanero and the Gold Habanero seeds. When my seeds arrived I was notified that the Brown Habanero seeds were back ordered. After weeks I received no response concerning the back ordered seeds. I emailed TGS and was finally told they did not have and would not get the Brown Habanero seeds.The seeds that I did receive germinated less than 40% and TGS sent more seeds. Finally I got the seeds to germinate including the Gold "Habanero" seeds. The peppers bloomed much earlier and I now have long green peppers that are not Habaneros. I complained to TGS and got no response. I not longer trust this company and will never do business with it again!!

"On Jun 12, 2013 12:51 PM, Tomato Growers Supply Co. responded with:

We apologize for missing your email. We were able to find it, and we have replied to your message.

If you ever have trouble reaching us online, please give us a call toll-free at 888-478-7333, Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM Eastern time. We will be glad to assist you in any way that we can.

We are looking into this issue with Habanero. We have not had any similar problem reports this season, so hopefully this is an isolated incident.

We are very concerned about the quality of the seeds that we send to our customers. We guarantee that seeds will grow out true to type with good germination rates up to one year from the purchase date, and we have sent a refund check to you for this packet."

I ordered both pepper and tomato seeds in several varieties that appeared mouth watering in the pictures. For the most part, the pictures were all that my mouth was able to water over. It's hard to acquire fresh, tasty vegetables when the seeds, no matter how much you care for and baby them, do not germinate.

Don't call and talk to that woman Linda. In my opinion, she may just be the rudest person on the face of the planet.

Do yourself a favor and just buy your produce at Fresh Mkt or Whole Foods or someplace similar.

I ordered the following tomatoes: Sub-Artic Max (#2733); Stupice (#4782); Siberian (#2908); and Polar Baby (#2536).

The only thing that came up was 2 sprouts from seeds of Polar Baby. The price including shipping was $15.75
ARRRRRGGGG! What a waist of money!

I spent both time and money selecting these tomatoes and really did want to grow them here in Minnesota. I am very sorry they didn't even sprout -- and the few that did were weak.

"On May 16, 2012 8:45 AM, Tomato Growers Supply Co. responded with:

We are sorry for your disappointment with our seeds. However, we do want you to know that we have tested all of our seeds for germination quality as mandated by Federal Law, and we do not sell any tomato variety that tests less than 80% (the Federal standard is 75% for tomato). The seeds you purchased had tests completed on 10/21/11 with the following results: Siberian--88%; Stupice--88%; Polar Baby--90%; and Sub Arctic Maxi--84%. We were trained by the Florida State Seed Lab to perform these tests.
We understand that seeds are living organisms and as such can be unpredictable. We have a policy that any customer is entitled to a 100% refund or replacement seed any time within a year of purchase. Please call us to request this. Again, we are sorry for your experience, but please know that we are very serious about the quality of the products we sell and would never knowingly cheat or disappoint any of our customers. We want everyone to have great success and enjoy their gardening experience. That is our #1 mission!"

I ordered eight different types of tomato seeds. Six of the eight have 0% germination - really a major disappointment. The other two had a 25% germination rate so I spent over $25 for ridiculously low return. I won't be ordering from this company again.

Posted on May 17, 2011, updated February 16, 2012
I want to like this company because they are local so take my review with a grain of salt...

Pros: Their catalogue is very nice. It may be old fashioned but I find a good catalogue helpful in ordering. Shipment was quick. Very solid selection of seeds. And- they have some of the coveted Dwarf Tomato Project seeds.

Cons: Pricing seems a little high, not as high as some, but still expensive. There are no mini's or smalls to test a particular cultivar. A few of their regular sized, full priced packets would be considered mini's by most folks. Eight packs of seeds plus shipping ($5.25 for a local shipment of less than 1 oz ) ran just under $35.00. When I called them to discuss certain tomato seeds, the woman who answered seemed somewhat unfamiliar with their products and even basic tomato terminology. I had to change my questions a few times to get the info. That may not seem like much but I don't think asking a professional tomato growing company in SW Florida about tomatoes that set in high heat should be difficult.

At this point, I can only give a limited recommendation. I would recommend using Tomato Growers only for particular seeds (ie. Dwarf Wild Fred!), etc. that you cannot find at one of your regular suppliers. I'll update once I test their germ ratios. If germ ratio is high (85% or over), I may upgrade to positive with the qualifier that it remains an expensive supplier for tomato seeds.

In my experience Tomato Growers Supply seeds have had poor germination. I ordered last season from them and had low germination rates. I thought it could be my fault so i gave them another shot this year and was dissappionted once again.The peppers I purchased this year were called Jaloro (gold/yellow Jalapeno hybrid).Three seeds came up out of the Twelve I planted.The Tomato seeds had a slightly better rate but, I will not be ordering from them again.

I ordered tomato seeds late 2010 and much like another person posted, I actually wanted a particular variety, in my case it was RED ROSE. A) I am having very poor germination with all of the Tomato Growers Supply Seed I did receive. All other seed, even much older seed is already up. B) They STILL dont have RED ROSE in stock, despite that fact that it is in the new catalog and will appear in your cart if your order it. It WILL NOT be arriving in your mailbox with the rest of your order. I will not be ordering from Tomato Growers Supply again.

While I've ordered from them in the past, 2010's seeds had some horrible germination issues. I start several hundred plants of 30-50 varities of tomato and peppers from various vendors and years, so it's not different handling. I wasn't able to get 20 plants out of the entire packet of peron (kind of skimpy on the seed, exactly 30, so the 50% germination really showed. I make an emergency order from Territorial which came very quickly and germinated very well and saved the day. I also got only one cisneros tomatillo from the packet - I didn't have any orders, just for testing, replaced with similar from Adaptive Seeds. There was no response to my email or letter to Tomato Growers; they don't seem to stand behind their seeds the way Tomatofest does.

While TGS has a nice selection and the other varities from them germinated okay, I don't need the stress of unreliable germination so I will not ever order from them again.

Posted on February 17, 2010, updated April 2, 2010
I have bought from this site for the last 4 or 5 years and just recently put in an order. I recieved no email saying the item shiped like many other companies do. I also paid 5.25 for shipping an order that cost them 1.05 to ship. And what did they ship in : a plain manila envelop with totally no padding. When you pay 3 and 4 dollars for a packet of 30 seeds and some of them are crushed with there shotty costly shipping its just not worth the selection.

Signed, Disapointed

I thought it was just me! This year I tried Winter Sowing for the first time. I was taking note on the germination rates for each milkjug that I sowed. Out of all the companies I had ordered seeds from (all fresh seeds), the seeds from TGS had the poorest germination rates, across the board, with each variety I ordered from them.

I sowed only 10 seeds per milk jug, and the TGS seeds averaged only 20-30% germination in each jug. Not very good...

I used 6 different companies this year for tomato seeds. Tomato Growers had a terrible germination rate.

Siberian 0%
Siletz 0%
Early Wonder 50%
Gregori's Altai 30%
Yellow Ping Pong 60%

I am an experienced gardener and all my other varieties from other companies have come up. I've started many varieties for many years and never had this sort of problem.

I will not order from them again!

Of the 4 companies I ordered seeds from this year, the germination from TGS was the worst. Out of 214 tomato seeds sown only 125 germinated ... that's less than 60%. I won't be buying seeds from TGS in the future.

DON'T ORDER LEGEND HERE! I ordered "Legend" seeds from this company because they were recommended by Cornell as resistant to late blight. Since shipping was $5.25, I ordered a second pack of something I was mildly interested in but wouldn't have ordered on its own. At no point did they let me know Legend was out of stock on the web site. Even now, four days after I received my seeds, it's STILL BEING OFFERED ON THE WEB SITE AND STILL GOES INTO THE CART. But it is out of stock. So I paid almost $8 for a pack of seeds I don't really want trying to purchase seeds they ran out of who knows how long ago. And customer service had nothing to say except too bad. I will never order from this company again.

I bought celebrity tomato seeds from tomato growers two years ago and only tried to grow them this spring. They germinated very well but when they were about 10 inches tall all of the celebrity seedlings developed leaf mold. My other tomato seedlings grown from even older seeds from another company were all fine. I called the company and tried to tell them that their seeds could very well be contaminated with leaf mold. The customer service person tried to look me up in their database and that took FOREVER. Then when she finally found it, she asked me if I wanted refund. I told her that I didn't really care about the refund but I wanted to let them know about this leaf mold contamination possibility. Neither she or the person supposedly in charge of seeds were particularly interested in my findings. I won't buy from them again unless I can't find the seeds anywhere else.

Count me in as another whose order took 3 WEEKS to get here. I called and followed up and they said that Internet orders take longer because they have to be entered into the computer. What????? Isn't the point of internet ordering that it is faster because it is all computerized? Maybe they need to update their software/system/procedures for ordering. If not, this needs to be in BIG BOLD letters on their site (there is one sentence on one web page that says that for fastest ordering, fax in your order, but I had to look for it, after the fact). Also, no email order confirmation? No email that my order was shipped? I believe that most internet consumers do it on the internet because in almost all cases it is faster and more accurate for both parties involved--- in this case, it seemed to be the opposite.

I will say that they have a great selection of seeds, and we will see how they do, but at this point, my seeds are going in 2 weeks later than I planned on and I am not so happy about that.

It has taken 17 days after internet ordering to receive my seeds. During that time I made two phone calls to try to track the progress of the order. One service representative gave me incorrect information. Now that I have received the package, I find that one of the four packets is incorrect. I am very disappointed with the service this company has provided. I am hoping, however, that the seeds are good ones. I will update later based on subsequent experiences.

I really hate to relay negative experiences, but I hate to see my fellow hobby growers meet with disappointment and ill treatment. I bought multiple packs of seeds from this company. One out of many packets did well. The others, even the free pack, had a terrible rate of germination. A woman named Linda is the manager apparently and I personally found her to be extremely rude, and far from accommodating. I felt really taken advantage of and would never buy from them again if they were the only seed company in existence.