Our seeds are not intended for professional farmers. Our seeds are sold in small packs only and are exclusively intended for final customers, hobby gardeners only. Our seeds are only sold as collector’s items or for ornamental purposes. All our seeds are packed by hand, by us. Normally tomato seed packs contain 10seeds, peppers 10 seeds per pack, corn 25 seeds per pack. Exact seeds count for each variety, you will find in the description for that variety.
We are small-scale farmers cultivating many rare heirloom varieties, old traditional varieties from different places in the world, and newly crossed varieties. We do not grow any GMO varieties. We are farming accordingly to ecological principles. We are not ecologically certified, because certification is expensive. We avoid chemical fertilizers and use chicken fertilizer from our own flock. We also use fertilizer from goats and horses from nearby farms. We also produce compost and mulch from our own, small orchard of olive trees and fruit trees.
We grow all our tomato seeds by ourselves. All tomato seeds are fermented for the best germination rate. We grow hundreds of different varieties every year, many new varieties but also old "best-sellers". We can present one of Europe's largest assortments of tomato varieties, with more than 800 varieties. Although, we only have a small stock of each variety, so varieties might sell out fast. All our tomato seeds are openly pollinated - OP. Tomatoes though are mostly self-pollinating and the risk for cross-pollination is very low. In general, the risk for cross-pollination is between 0,5% - 12% depending on the kind of tomato. Normally all tomato seeds you can find on the market of heirloom varieties, are openly pollinated.
We get plants from cross-pollinated seeds somewhere in between 1-3 plants of 100. Both from our own seeds, seeds traded with other small-scale farmers, and seeds bought from large seed companies. It is probably most cross-pollination, but sometimes it could also be a natural mutation. This is of course a hassle if it's a specific variety you have excitedly been waiting for, I know this for myself. But this is how it works with openly pollinated tomato seeds. It is nothing I worry too much about though. We just use these tomatoes for fresh eating, sun-drying, or other use, and then grow the variety again next year.
Also, many of our seeds from aubergine, chili peppers, and sweet peppers are openly pollinated (OP). Some of the varieties are isolated and pollinated by hand. Read the description for each variety to find out if it's isolated pollinated (ISO).
About our large assortment of tomatoes. Maybe you are thinking, how can anyone need over 800 varieties of tomatoes? And yes, that is a good question. Probably most people don't need 800 varieties of tomatoes. Although our seed philosophy is that there are varieties that can be grown in most places in the world. From the coldest places to places with perfect tomato conditions and dry areas. We want people to be able to find good varieties for their own farming conditions. Early varieties, hardy varieties, drought hardy varieties. Varieties for growing indoors, in your greenhouse or if you are lucky enough to be farming in a "perfect" area, then you will have a huge assortment to choose from!
Our policy is to produce all the pictures we use in our webshop by our own hand. We don't use stock photos or other companies/people's photos for our tomatoes or other products. Most of the varieties are very rare and unique. Some of the pictures might not be the best. And for a few of the varieties, we missed out on photographing it. But in our opinion, it is better with a picture of lower quality than stealing someone else's photos. Not only that photographing is both difficult and time-demanding, and thus respectless to take advantage of someone else's hard work. It is also illegal to use someone else's pictures without permission.
We have chosen to not use watermarks on our pictures when this would lower the quality of the pictures and lower the experience of the site. We try to picture the variety in the best possible way to show that variety's characteristics. Although the color might differ on some occasions depending on the light when the photograph was taken. For example, a variety might look more red than pink if it is photographed later in the evening when the light is warmer.
All pictures on our site are taken by Meraki Seeds and are the property of Meraki Seeds. It is not allowed to "borrow", or steal, any picture. Any use of pictures from Meraki Seeds without permission will be invoiced according to current standards.