Carol, I wonder if it was Bluebonnet Feed? We went in there once looking for some sort of supplies for our chickens or guineas long, long, ago. I don't even remember seeing seeds but it was a big, cavernous feed store near downtown and it did have gardening supplies. The only other off-the-beaten path feed-and-seed store I found there in Ardmore was Agri-Products, which also is a feed-and-seed, and the first time I went in there, they had Willhite Seeds hanging on a seed rack on the wall in Willhite's distinctive plastic bags. It was the first time I'd seen Willhite's seeds in a store in a long time. I guess that was about a decade ago. Shelly, Most places have a guarantee of some sort. I didn't look to see what theirs was. Normally it is a guarantee that the seeds will meet the minimum federal standards for germination, which is the minimum germination rate (by percentage) that is required. I look forward to seeing how their seeds grow for you, and I imagine they'll grow just fine since any reputable seed company will do germination tests for each batch of seeds before they package them and ship them just so they know they are sending out seeds that meet the germination standards. I know that some of the seed companies I buy from will send you seeds from a batch that failed a germination test, but they'll double the seed count and note on the packet that you need to sow more seeds because that batch has a low germination rate. When I've gotten a batch with that note on it, I'll usually sow twice as much as usual....and sometimes all of them sprout, which makes me wonder why they failed the test to begin with. Dawn

I know nothing about the Paragon from Tomatofest so cannot comment on it. I have grown almost every Livingston variety offered by Victory Seeds and I know/trust their seeds for that reason. The Paragon I grew from Victory Seeds was true to type and the fruit I got matched Livingston's description and Victory's description. I've never grown DeWeese Streaked. Want to know why? It is a late season variety, and it can be very hard to get late-season types to set fruit early enough in our climate. If they don't set fruit in May/the first half of June, high temps and high humidity tend to shut down pollination/fertilization and then they won't set many, if any, fruits until fall. Then, since they take a long time to mature, you're racing the cold weather to get any ripe ones at all. I tend to avoid late-season varieties for that reason, unless I can plant them in Feb. in a pot and drag them into the garage at night. Using that technique, they'll usually set fruit for me in late April or early May and then I can be harvesting it by July. Otherwise, it isn't worth babying a plant through all that heat only to get a handful of fruit in the fall. I'd rather have tomatoes for months. I work hard to improve my in-ground soil and I spend a lot of money carefully blending a soil-less mix for my containers, so I don't want to waste "good soil" on a plant that is not highly productive. I can tell by the first week in June if a tomato plant is going to be productive for me, or not, by how many flowers/fruit it has set by then. In my area, the temps usually hit the point of no return during the third week in June, so if fruits aren't on the tomato plants (not talking bite-sized ones here, they're different) by that point, then that plant is not going to have a good year and is a waste of space. I also am not a really huge fan of the very large bicolors, having found them to be quite erratic in performance. Some years they taste great, other years they don't. Some years they are beautiful, other years they have a lot of cracking and aren't so great. If it rains a lot, especially after they're breaking color, their texture can get mushy or mealy and the excess moisture waters down the flavor. I've had better results from red/green bicolors than from yellow/orange/red ones. I don't know why but for whatever reason they seem better adapted to our climate. To be honest, even the bicolored cherry types I've grown weren;t good enough to earn a return engagement. It isn't that there was something wrong with them, but rather than there just wasn't anything that special. This year some of the Brad Gates' varieties I'm trying are bicolors and they may be late-season ones, but I've toyed with trying them for years and finally decided to just do it. However, they're "experiments" that I'm added in addition to all my regular tomatoes, which means I added more containers in order to have them and not that they are taking the place of one of our "usual" productive varieties. That makes them expendable if they aren't doing well. I have a certain number of tomatoes I expect to get for fresh eating, canning, salsa, pasta sauce, dehydrating, etc. so I am pretty ruthless about not growing types that won't/don't deliver. For me, late season types tend to not deliver. Your results might vary, and you certainly should try whatever pleases you, but remember that there is virtually nothing we can do here to offset the effect that high heat/high humidity have on tomato production and choose your varieties with that in mind. What is it about DeWeese Streaked that appeals to you? Dawn

Hey everyone! I'm just curious as to what everyone that still views this forum is ordering for seeds this next year. I'll be waiting until spring to get a lot of seeds at a local old-time feed store, as they're much cheaper there (seed potatoes for example), but I am ordering some seeds from Southern Seed Exchange and Pine Tree Seeds, as I've heard good things about them from the folks over on the Oklahoma forums. I consider myself fairly lucky to have quite a few seeds in the freezer that either my great grandparents saved many, many years ago or that someone in my family recently bought but never really used. I don't have to buy too many. Here's my list: 1. Tomatoes a. Yellow Brandywine (SSE) b. Abraham Lincoln (SSE) c. Sungold F1 (Pine Tree) d. Mortgage Lifter (Freezer) e. Cherokee Purple (Freezer) f. Red Brandywine (Freezer) g. Black Krim (Freezer) h. Yellow Pear and Red Pear (Freezer) 2. Peppers a. Jasmyn Rissie Hot Pepper (SSE) b. Anaheim Chile (Pine Tree) c. Ghost Pepper Bhut Jolokia (Pine Tree) d. California Wonder Bell (Pine Tree) 3. Lettuce a. Rouge Grenobloise (my all time favorite) (Pine Tree) b. Ice Queen (Pine Tree) c. Merlot (Freezer) d. Freckles (Pine Tree) 4. Spinach a. Bloomsdale Long Standing (Freezer) 5. Cabbage a. Greyhound (In the ground) b. Cour Di Bue (In the ground) c. Brunswick (Freezer) d. Early Flat Dutch (SSE) 6. Broccoli a. Imperial F1 (Pine Tree) 7. Cauliflower a. Snow Crown F1 (Pine Tree) 8. Kolhrabi a. Early Purple Vienna (Pine Tree) 9. Swedes a. Helenor (Pine Tree) 10. Carrots a. St. Valery (Freezer) b. Scarlet Nantes (Freezer) 11. Parsnips a. Harris Model (SSE) 12. Turnips (Feed Stores) 13. Radishes (Feed Stores and Freezer) 14. Potatoes (Feed Stores) 15. Onions a. Australian Brown Intermediate (SSE) 16. Leeks a. American Flag (SSE) 17. Collards: a. Alabama Blue (SSE) 18. Kale a. Red Russian (Freezer) 19. Peas a. Tall Telephone (Alderman) (Pine Tree) 20. Brussel Sprouts a. Jade Cross (Pine Tree) 21. Beans a. hopefully "Nadine" (Freezer) b. Top Crop (Freezer) c. Maybe Cowpeas (Freezer) 22. Cucumbers a. Boston Pickling (Freezer) 23. Squash a. Black Beauty Zucchini (Freezer) b. Yellow Crookneck (Freezer) c. Seminole Pumpkins (SSE) 24. Beets Detroit Red (Freezer) I am trying to keep it cheap this year, as I spent too much last year. I'm probably forgetting some. What's your guys' lists?

noki33 Dumb question maybe, but can all vegetable seeds handle freezing down to zero Fahrenheit and below? Suppose there isn't a problem even with those cold weeks of winter transit. Not a dumb question. Seeds can be frozen for longer term storage if done properly. Almost all of them are OK with the usual winter shipping that seed places have- 2-4 daysish? shipping times. If the shipping time screwed up a lot of seeds, the mail order companies would have failed long ago. Some seeds or plants can be more cold sensitive, but hopefully you are dealing with a company that knows their stock well enough not to ship those items in winter. Don't know what companies you are using- but none of them should be having weeks of transit. The delay in shipping time when it comes to weeks is more often the processing time at the company prior to shipping out.