An update on what seeds are available: Amount Type Name 1 Arugula rocket 1 cantaloupe hearts of gold 6 carrot danvers half long 1 chives garlic 4 columbine harlequin mix 2 cucumber bush champion 6 cucumber straight eight 1 foxglove foxy mix 1 Gaillardia goblin 2 hollyhock fordhook giants mix 5 lettuce black seeded simpson 1 lettuce simpson elite 6 onion evergreen long white bunching 1 oriental poppy brilliant red 3 parsley single italian plain-leafed 3 pumpkin triple treat 4 pumpkin big max 6 Summer Squash Fordhook Zucchini 13 sweet basil ocimum basilicum 1 sweet corn early & often hybrid 1 sweet pepper big dipper 1 sweet pepper 4-way hybrid 1 swiss chard fordhook giant 1 tomato burpee's supersteak hybrid 1 tomato super beefsteak 1 watermelon carolini cross #183 2 winter squash burpee's butterbush

Yep, Stella is well known for pollinating itself - the flowers are really fertile and there are lots of flowers!! Most likely, you were the one who made the cross. If you wanted to be very serious - aka going to intro your flowers, or sell them, you would want to be sure you actually did the crossing, so you could quote the parantage (Navy Blues x Itty Bitty Blue). But, even the big guys get surprises some times... you'll see things like Navy Blues x Unk. Those bees are sneaky!! :o)

If you are talking about tomato seeds (many discussions here about this the search will pull up) cool dry storage is easily good for 5-10 years. Even longer has been posted by many in the past up to and including 25 years. The Seed Saving forum has a good FAQ about how to best store seeds. Personally I have fridge stored seeds (in paper) that are still highly viable past 10 years - used some '94 and '96 dated ones this year. Many professional seed savers prefer paper envelopes over plastic since plastic can trap moisture inside. Dave

Mary Ann, there have been quite a few reports this year of packs of tomato seeds that are not entirely pure for the variety. As mentioned above, there could be a stray seed or two of a known variety that got mixed in when the seeds were packed, or it could be some crossed seed that got mixed in. And you know that I know that you know how to tell the difference b'c the stray seed should come true from saved seed and the crossed seed won't come true, usually. ( smile) Carolyn, remembering that the variety Orange Strawberry came from a stray seed in a commercial pack of the variety Pineapple. Maybe you could ask Ed Hume Seeds about what you have.