Located in Mineral, Virginia, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is a 72-acre farm and cooperatively run business which sells more than 800 varieties of open-pollinated, organic, and heirloom vegetable, herb, flower, grain, and cover crop seeds. Most of their seeds are grown by a network of over 50 small farms across the United States. You can learn about some of their seed growers here.
Southern Exposure also offers several varieties of cotton, seed mixes, and mushroom spawns as well as seed-saving and other garden supplies. On their website, they have a Garden Planner tool and many different Growing Guides (such as for growing specific vegetable, herb, and flower varieties, seed saving, and fall and winter gardening tips). And they have a blog, too!
You can purchase their seeds through their Catalog and Garden Guide or in retail stores throughout the Southeast.
Rainbow Starters Mix
One of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange’s products is the Rainbow Starters Mix. The Rainbow Starters Mix includes the following seed varieties: Jewel Mix nasturtiums, Autumn Beauty sunflowers, Royalty Purple Pod bush beans, Lacinato Rainbow kale, Easter Egg radishes, Rainbow chard, Cosmic Purple carrots, Lemon cucumbers, Tromboncino summer squash, and Wild Garden lettuce mix. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange donates 30% of their sales of the Rainbow Starters Mix to the Piedmont Environmental Council and Buy Fresh, Buy Local!
Janie Hynson is an aspiring homesteader in North Carolina. She recently moved back to her hometown after living in Boston for six years and then traveling across the U.S. working on organic farms. Janie works in public health and sustainable agriculture and is interested in how health can be improved through homesteading.
It’s hard to choose which seeds are most exciting! The lettuces do look yummy though. 🙂
We really like their seeds. We have purchased them for years. Highly productive and great variety.
Do I have to pick just one? I love easter egg radishes – they are so much more fun than the ones (all red) in the store. I’m crazy about kale too so it’ll be fun to try a new variety. I guess the rest fall into second place for me, but I’d love to try them. Purple carrots!
Oh I just LOVE Southern Exposure Seed Exhange!!! <3 How can I pick ONE thing to be excited about?! I guess the easter egg radishes because I have never grown them and they look like a beautiful addition to salads, pickles, and authentic tacos! Also really excited for the Rainbow chard and Kale!! Oh! And LEMON CUCUMBERS!!!
All the varieties sound yummy and would go great in our YARDen! We started new raised vegetable beds this year and bought our seeds from SESE. <3
That’s a beautiful mix of seeds. I’m anxious to try the tromboncino because I’m tired of losing squash to bugs.
Lemon Cucumbers. I love cucumbers but struggle to grow them. They are my challenge this year to figure out.
I love nasturtiums so I’d be most excited about those, although Easter egg radishes would be a close second. 🙂 We have a little enclosed raised bed garden in our back yard, and that’s where they’d go!
Gardening is my favorite way to relax. Plus nothing more amazing than getting to feed your family from your own garden!
I love Southern Exposure Seed Exchange!
I like to plant at least one new vegetable every year, so I am very excited by the nasturtiums. What a great givaway!! <3
What a wonderful contest. I love that you have purple varieties in the giveaway.
Of course, Lacinato Rainbow kale ! I have been growing green kale, and excited about having it in different colors! So much fun!
We are just starting our “homestead” and I have been researching who to buy seeds from. I have a 1000sq ft I need to plan and fill with yummy goodness! I would love to try these seeds!
We are just starting our “homestead” and I have 1000sq ft to fill with yummy goodness! I would love to try out this seed co!
I go through so many packets of radish seeds. I use them to mark almost every veggie row.
Thanks for the chance.
Didn’t get my comment finished! I’m most excited about the Autumn Beauty Sunflowers. Love sunflowers! Thanks for the chance!
I’m most excited about the Tromboncino summer squash because they are resistant to cucumber worm that is so destructive here.
I tend to use lettuce as baby vegetables, so I go through a lot of that kind of seed.
I love the rainbow starters mix because:
A. I am obsessed with gardening
B. I love plants
C. Eating the natural rainbow is essential for good health
D. Color in the garden is aesthetically pleasing!
I’m excited about the rainbow lacinato kale, because I have never seen rainbow lacinato kale but i love all kales so i’m sure it’s amazing.
I love the different colors in this mix, along with all of the seeds offered at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange!
Cosmic Purple carrots i will plant it in a raised bed in my backyard. i love the uniqueness of these carrots.
I would love to win this! Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is one of our favorites!
Kale, kale, kale…or perhaps carrots…like potato chips, too hard to select one!!! thanks so much for the opportunity
Excited to try the Easter egg radishes!
Purchased Cucuzzi gourd seeds from you this year as I read they flowers attract pollinators.
I’m planting French breakfast radishes, so Easter Egg radishes would be a fun addition to my zone 6 garden 🙂
Great seed mix! Purple carrots sound wonderful!
I love southern exposure seed!!!
I Love Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. This would be an exciting package to refresh my aging seed stash.
I love Southern Exposure Seed Exchange! If I have to pick just one favorite from this mix it’s the cosmic purple carrots
Love supporting independent businesses and heirloom seeds are a big favorite. I’d love to plant the kale and lemon cucumbers in particular.
I love Southern Exposure! Their catalog is one of my fav things to keep. I love all the seeds in the rainbow starter…especially the cosmic carrots! Woot!
I love the rainbow pack and purple carrots are my favorite!!
I am most excited to try the Lacinato Rainbow kale because I have heard so many good things about it. I would plant it in one of my raised beds that gets partial shade.
Easter Egg Radishes! Now, that could confuse a bunny. 🙂 I will plant them under my baby fig tree in the center of my mini-farm.
The sunflowers. I want to plant them in my front yard.
Really excited about that summer squash!
One of my favorite seed companies. <3
I would love to try the Cosmic Purple Carrots. I have bought from Southern Exposure because they are ethical and care about the earth and our health. Love them.
Love Southern Exposure seeds! Can’t wait to get more!
This is such a great mix of companion plants. I love the flavor of lemon cucumbers. Thus nasturtiums look gorgeous as well as being a help to everything else. The sunflowers will certainly make any gardener proud. And even the staples of beans, squash, radishes and kale are as ascetically pleasing as they are practical. I’m partial to the beans with their purple pod simply because all my past beans were green or yellows. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange really did a great job on this one. I have even more reason to be appreciative of their work, as they just donated to our new seed library, which I’ve been focusing on starting instead of my own seeds.
I do love SESE seeds of almost any kind. I recently saw Iris on a Virginia
Gardening show and learned a lot about their efforts. Must get up there
for a visit or workshop, soon!
I am looking forward to purple carrots and lemon cucumbers. Different variations of old favorites. Thank you for the giveaway!
Great idea, they say it is healthy to eat a rainbow of veggies too. Would love to try these seeds!
I’m really looking forward to the radishes and kale. The carrots sound good too, but I’ve never gotten a good crop of carrots.
The radish seeds look really fun!
The radishes look beautiful, but I’m most excited about the purple carrots and lemon cucumbers. I live on a half acre in a subdivision, but we put it to work with our vegetable garden every year 🙂
Cukes or lettuce but truly love them all
I’d be excited to try the Cosmic purple carrots! We do a veggie garden every year and I usually do a few rows of carrots, but I’ve never tried purple. I bet the nasturtiums are beautiful. Those would be pretty around the garden border.
I’ve never heard of lacinato RAINBOW kale… sounds fun. They all sound fun! We’d plant in our raised beds.