Below is a step by step process for how to order seeds* for free from the U.S. Government.

This article may seem like “fake news,” but I really have gotten some great seeds this way.

I didn’t even have to pay for the postage when the USDA sent them to me.

THE MOST popular article on Suburban Hobby Farmer is Rare Vegetable Seeds Free from the U.S. Government. In fact, the article is part of a three-article series on free seeds that has had over 100,000 page views since the first installment in December 2010.

It’s no wonder that the series is popular, since it provides info on how to request rare vegetable seeds from the USDA. More specifically, the seeds are from the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Plant Genetic Resources Unit (PGRU). (Boy, is that a mouthful.)

Not just any seeds

The seeds I’m talking about here are not ordinary vegetable seeds. They’re heirloom varieties from all over the world. Often, you can find them nowhere else. I’ve asked for, received and grown six tomato varieties from the PGRU.

They sent me these seeds at no cost. I didn’t even pay postage. All I needed to do was apply through the PGRU’s online request form.

But since the particulars of how to go about this are spread across three articles, I thought it would be helpful to summarize the important details in this article.

Before you order

One key point to consider before you order is that the folks at PGRU feel it’s important to NOT BE SEEN AS TAKING BUSINESS AWAY FROM HEIRLOOM SEED SELLERS. You can imagine how angry heirloom seed producers would be if lots of people got their heirloom seeds from the USDA instead of buying them. So PGRU only supplies seeds to organizations for educational, research or breeding purposes.

Related: For product info on vegetable seeds from Amazon, click here.*

It’s my guess that requests for seeds from PGRU have skyrocketed since I wrote these articles. Before the articles, they probably only received a small number of requests from university researchers and plant breeders. Now there’s an increasing number of Suburban Hobby Farmer readers who have made requests. The number could be in the thousands.

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If you decide to order from PGRU, be sure to make your case in the online application for how you are using the seeds for educational, research or breeding purposes.

In fact, you may want to publish the results of your vegetable growing experiments here in the comment section of this article because PGRU will ask where you intend to publish your research.

How the request process works

Here’s a step by step description of how to order seeds or cuttings on the USDA site:

1. Go to the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS).

It’s located here.

2. Enter a keyword into the text search query.

For example, enter “raspberry” into the box.

3. NPGS displays all the plants in the system with that keyword in the description.

Don’t expect that the information displayed will be user friendly. It’s designed for researchers and plant breeders who are used to working with databases.

The system will display a cryptic summary of each of the available varieties. The heading provides the name of the variety and where the seeds were originally found.

4. Click through to the detail page.

Sometimes there’s a lot of information on a variety (even photos of plants). Other times there is very little info. It depends on what was originally entered into the database.

5. If you want to order a variety.

Click from the detail page to the “Request This Germplasm” page. This puts the selected variety in your cart.

6. Click complete.

You are then presented with a form to fill out. Note the important “Describe Your Planned Research” box. This is where you need to make your case that you are asking for the seeds for a worthy cause.

Hit submit and you’re done.

Free Tomato Seeds

It took the Government quite a bit longer this year to send me free seeds than last year. In fact, I had pretty much given up when they finally arrived in the mail.

I figured that they had decided that my research wasn’t important enough to send the seeds. But it just took them longer than last year. This was probably because so many SHF readers are asking for seeds.

In the first year I ordered three tomatoes:

Kwand hsi hung shih

Pomodoro palla di fuco

IXL Bolgiano’s extremely early tomato

Of the three, the Kwand hsi hung shih was my favorite because of its squat pumpkin-like shape. But none of them were out of the ordinary in the taste department.

It’s hit or miss when it comes to PGRU seeds. You don’t have a lot of info to go on.

This year I’m once again trying three new tomatoes:

Plum lemon from the Russian Federation

Primrose gage from India

Black cherry from the U.S.

Of the three the black cherry looks the most promising. It’s the most vigorous plant of the three. Plus, it was the first to set fruit.

The primrose gage from India seems to be a normal tomato plant in almost every way. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The Plum lemon seems to be in the early stages of blight. I’m debating if I should take it out before the blight spreads to the others. It’s a shame because I really would like to see what the ripe fruit looks like.

Related: Growing Better Tomatoes with Walls-O-Water, Plant Teepees, Mini Green Houses..*

I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I ordered just tomato seeds from the PGRU, but they have all kinds of heirloom vegetables and fruits. I just settled on tomatoes.

If you’ve ordered from PGRU, let us know about your experience, or if you have questions about the site or the process, ask using the comment section below.

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