I have a small home garden. I usually plant two 60' rows of zipper cream peas. This year I bought a pound of seed peas from a coop other than my usual one. They had pre-packaged peas in plastic bags printed with SAD's information on it. I planted heavy (2") hoping I wouldn't need to go back and replant any, or only a few, skips. The stated germination rate on the bag was 80%. Roughly 5-6 days after planting they started sporadically sprouting. I kept waiting for the BIG gaps to fill in but they never did. I ended up with probably a very poor germination rate...probably around 20% considering how heavy I seeded the rows. I went ahead and replanted the skips...they, too, had a very dismal germination rate. At this point I'm about ready to till the few seedling under and plant other company's peas in the place of these. What a waste of my 70-year-old energy and TIME. As a comparison, I planted a 30' row of sugar baby watermelons that I had saved four years ago. Just yesterday I thinned them out as I think every seed came up. Something is screwy with SSD's seeds or this particular farmer's coop. One thing is for sure, I will be avoiding both in the future. read more

Service Seed Division - Skips - Amory, Mississippi