Frequently Asked Questions

1.What is your shipping policy?

Please click here for the shipping policy. 

2.Do you ship internationally?

We ship to Ireland, Northern Ireland and at our discretion some other countries in Europe. Please enquire with us directly for this. We only ship registered to the countries outside of Ireland. Please note we only sell to private individuals or community gardens for their own use. We do not sell to any type of business. Please note we do not provide phytosanitary certificate or plant passport at this time. It is your responsibility to check which customs and legal requirements exist in your country before you buy seeds from us. We will take no responsibility if the seeds are lost or destroyed or if they are stopped by customs. Please note that since Brexit, we unfortunately cannot ship to UK mainland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of man, Jersey. We also cannot ship to the US.

3.When will my order be shipped?

Orders typically ship twice a week on Monday or Friday depending on when your order was placed. We will send you an email when your order has been dispatched.

4.How will my order ship?

We use the Irish postal service An Post. Please note that the postal service can sometimes be unreliable therefore we recommend you choose the registered options at check out. An Post does not refund anything if the packet is shipped in standard shipping (non registered).

5.Why has the shipping rate change?

We may change the shipping rate for multiple reasons:

-An Post, the Irish postal service, in Ireland changes their rate regularly. We therefore have to follow.

-An Post occasionally has issues. Therefore for Ireland we have switched to digital stamps allowing us to know when a post is delivered to the customer in Ireland. We are hoping this will make An post more answerable when the mail goes missing. 

 

6.How long will it take to receive my order?

It depends on when your order was placed. We dispatch orders on the Monday and Friday. Once your order has been dispatched, it takes on average 2 to 5 days for you to receive the order delivered by An Post within Ireland. For customers living outside of Ireland, the packets can take up to one month.  An Post does not refund anything if the packet is shipped in standard shipping (non registered). We strongly recommend to all our customers to choose the Registered shipping option at check out for traceability and insurance purposes. If the customer chooses non-registered shipping, we unfortunately have no visibility on the seed envelop once it has left our facility. 

7.How do I change my order?

Please reach out to us if your order has already been placed and has not been dispatched yet.

8.There was an error with the items I received, what can I do?

If you notice any error, please do not open the seed packet. Please contact us as soon as possible. If we notice the error before you do, we will reach out to let you know and correct the mistake made. Sometimes mistakes happen and If we notice the error ourselves, we will reach out to you and correct it.

9.Why am I not able to check out or why is my order cancelled? 

There may be a few reasons:

- We have a minimum order policy. If the order is less than 15 euros excluding shipping, we regrettably will not be able to ship.

-If you are trying to check out and cannot manage to, please drop us an email using the contact form in our website. 

10.Why do I get a 404 message or cannot access the website page?

Because we have had many connection attempts from bots coming from countries we do not ship too, we have now restricted the access to any VPN and Proxy. If you are using a VPN or proxy to connect, please contact us by email or through social media and we will add your IP address to the the whitelist so you can connect.

11.How do I get a refund?

Please check our refund policy

12.Some of the seeds I am interested in seem to have run out of stock. What can I do?

Contact us. We may already have another supply coming in and we can give you an estimated date for availability.

13.I am having some challenges with some of the seeds. What can I do?

Please contact us. We can go through these challenges with you and work with you to try and figure out what is going on and provide answers. We want you to be successful! If you have a claim regarding the seed germination, even though we have germination tested them before putting them for sale, we will test them again before deciding on any replacement or refund. Very often, we have found the issue was not an issue with the seeds themselves.

14.I am looking for a variety and i do not see it on the website, what can I do?

Please contact us and we will be able to help. Maybe we simply do not have it and If suitable, we will try and source it for you. It could also be that you are looking for a F1 variety and in this instance, you will likely not find it here. Please check our blog on Why grow heirloom seeds.

15.Where do you source your seeds from?

We grow some of our own seeds ourselves in Cork, Ireland, as amateur gardeners and seed savers and we also source seeds from small seed conservation societies across Europe, some seeds saving organizations across Europe and some European organic seeds suppliers and heirloom and rare seeds suppliers. 

16.Are all your seeds organic?

Most of our seeds are organically certified. The seeds which are organically certified will be in the organic section and will say organic in the title. All our seeds are untreated, grown without chemicals and open-pollinated. Sometimes, seed growers make the choice to no sign up for the organic certification because of the heavy requirements for organic certification. Therefore it is very difficult to have organic seeds for all heirloom and rare varieties so we have to make a choice. We think that all heirloom and rare seeds deserve to be saved. Organic is a growing method so you can grow them following organic principles in your garden. 

 

17.Do you sell to business, public or commercial institutions?

We only sell to hobby and home gardeners. Any individual buying from us buys in his/her own capacity. If an order is only composed of the same variety multiple times, we reserve the right to cancel the order.

 

18.What happens to my data if i am inactive for up to 48 months?

Due to GDPR, we only keep customer data for the time they are needed for, notably, purchase records and this for about 48 months. In case of inactivity for two years, we will start a data erasure request.  For customer's newsletter subscription, in case of inactivity for one year, we consider the customer is not interested and will remove the subscription.

 

19.Where are you based?

We are based in Cork, in the Republic of Ireland.

 

If you cannot find what you are looking for, please contact us.

Email us at info@sowdiverse.ie