I actually found the email for you :-) here is the relevant part: We are currently designing our bigger and better 2012 seed catalog. At a whopping 196 pages, it contains new varieties of seed, more high-quality photographs, and more planting instructions and growing tips. If you have not previously received our catalog, get on our mailing list now so as to not miss out on your early copy in December. We are also in the process of updating our website, rareseeds.com. While it may take a couple of weeks to complete the updates and changes to our website, do check us out. We will have the new catalog on line as soon as possible. All orders shipped now will contain only seeds packed for 2012.

My uncle has owned a nursery for about 30 years. He was talking to me last night over the phone and recommended them for good heirloom seeds. While I've never used them personally, he has used them.

First of all, I had just placed a large order with Willhite for a lot of common veggies, so I really didn't need to buy a lot more things. It's my husband's fault...... Beans - Aquadulce (fava) My husband picked these and I am still unsure if I want to bother with this one. Dragon Tonque Contender Roma II bush Red Rice Bean Mayflower Missouri Wonder Pole Rattlesnake Pole Old Homestead Kentucky Wonder Pole Chinese Green Noodle Chinese Mosaic Thai White Seeded Long Corn Stowells Evergreen True Gold Yellow Hickory King Dent Peas Sugar Snap Oregon Sugar Pod II Alaska Wando Lincoln Pepper Quadrato d'Asti Rosso Purple Beauty Golden Marconi Quadrato D"Asti Giallo Colan Red Pimento Anaheim (which was free) Okra Clemson Spineless Thai Grandfather Kurtz Cowhorn (a small cowhorn, I think) Lettuce Red Romaine Lolla Rossa Squash Baby Blue Hubbard Golden Hubbard Jumbo Pink Banana Herbs Oregano Vulgare Catnip Thai Green Cucumber New Zealand Spinach Shanghai Green Pak Choy American Top Rutabaga Elephant Head Amaranth And then there are the tomatoes. I have tomatoes on hand plus I sent a list to Jay that he could choose from to send to me, and I didn't know what I would get from him, etc. Some I based on what I could remember that the Tomato Man's Daughter says are her top choices. So I bought: Carbon Black Krim Black Cherry Hawaiin Pinapple Cherokee Purple Dr Carolyn Sioux Tess's Land Race Now about that garlic.....I don't know. I bought it from a vendor and didn't ask what it was. She had several plates of garlic all cleaned and pretty on plates on her table which I was looking at. A man was trying to choose some and she told him if he was planting it she had some others (not cleaned) and if he wanted those she would throw in some extra. He chose the clean ones. After he left, I told her I wanted some to plant. She pulled out a big bunch and asked me how many I wanted. I said "I'll take what you have in your hand." She counted them and told me the price, then threw in two more. I didn't even think to ask what kind it was because I thought if she could grow it in the Ozarks, then I could grow it here. I asked her if she planted in Sept and harvested in June. She said, "Exactly". A younger lady in the same booth said, "We plant in September or October, and we harvest when it has 3 dead leaves." She also said that they use the small cloves and plant the large ones. I came home and separated all of the cloves. I picked about 4 dozen of the largest cloves and put the rest in a bowl to use in the kitchen. Now the kicker....I paid $4 for the whole thing. Back to the seeds...When we walked in they had a special price for over 25 packs. It was a great price, but I am not going to post it here because they don't post it on their website. Also, I don't know if it was an end of season thing or if this was routine. I thought it was an end of season special, but when I looked at my seeds they were a few mixed in that said for the 2010 season, so now I don't know. I am going back in about a month because one of my friends is having a "fit" because she didn't get to go. LOL We wanted to go back anyway, so taking her back gives us a good excuse. Besides that, I didn't even look at melons, and I've got to buy Collective Farm Women. LOL I admire this company for what they are doing, and for the success of Jere for starting a company when he was 17 and staying with it until it was a big success. On the other side of the coin, he is a bit over the top for my taste. LOL He was walking around the area dressed in a garb that wouldn't have even been considered stylish in the 70's, (but was that old) and was just downright ugly. I thought some of the outfits I had seen him photographed in were bad, but this was too much. Guess if you have money you can "have it your way", but gosh. Anyway, he has a nice place and it is drawing people in, so you have to consider that a success. Oh - and one more thing. They are not open on Saturday. My guess was that it could be their Sabbath, but I didn't ask. Another bonus of the trip was that we went through Seymore and saw three different Amish individuals and couples traveling in their buggy. It was Saturday night. I picked the tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and squash and a few other things, but I made the mistake of telling my DH that I wanted to be sure to look at beans. I didn't. He just went over and bought one of everything that was there...then he hit the peas and okra. He buys big.

Jay, And you just know that I love going out there and fighting to get all that evil bermuda grass out of my lovely red clay. LOL If I had to choose (and I did, which is how we ended up with clay) between the three main types of soil common in Love County (dense red clay, almost pure sand, and rocky limestone soil), I'd choose clay because of the issues that gardeners here have with root knot nematodes in their sandy soil, but clay sure is hard to break and improve, especially clay that is mainly growing either bermuda grass or Johnson grass. I hope to break up three different areas this winter and plant in them next spring. One is clay with a little bit of sand mixed in with it, so I hope it is not quite as dense and hard as the soil where the existing garden was built. Another is pretty sandy, so it only needs lots and lots of organic matter added. The third area is the same type of horrible red clay we have around the house and main garden. Hopefully, we'll be able to break that clay, improve it and grow something edible from Baker Creek in it next year. Carol, Since I haven't visited Baker Creek twice this year like someone here has (hee hee), there were a few things I needed and/or wanted. Since it has been several days, I don't remember everything I ordered but I did order Sungold Select II like Jay did, and Stewart's Zeebest okra, which I've wanted to try for some time now. I think I ordered some melons and squash because most of the melon and squash seeds I have left in my seedbox date back to 2003 or 5 or 7 (I guess I was buying only in odd-numbered years) and I needed some fresher seed. I'll still plant the older ones, but I'll have the newer ones in case the 2003 and 2005 ones don't germinate terribly well. Dorothy, Don't forget broccoli! I've already got broccoli seed for next year (Packman, I think) because I remember well the trouble you had last spring. The seedracks in the stores here always have some sort of Burpee broccoli seed and I don't like their broccoli varieties, so I have to order in the fall to be ready to start seeds in winter. It seems like broccoli that does well for us here is getting harder and harder to find. Y'all, I am sitting here looking at the Irish Eyes print catalog from last year and guess what? They will sell you "Discount Bulk Organic Seed Potatoes" with price breaks if you buy in lots of 100, 500, 1000 or 2000 lbs. Does anyone need seed potatoes in those amounts? And, can you imagine the shipping? I bought 2 5-lb. bags of mixed fingerling potatoes at CostCo today and they were less than $6 a bag. Fingerling seed potatoes usually run about $8 to $10 a lb. from seed potato companies so even though I don't know the exact vareties of fingerlings in the mixed bags, the price was right--slightly more that $1 per pound. I bet I can look at the fingerlings and compare them to the photos in the seed catalogs and figure out what I have in that mix because there aren't that many fingerling varieties available (as compared to, say, regular potatoes). Dawn