They are hybrids, the parents are fertile so each batch of seeds requires the parents. Actually there have been several tomato cultivars that have been at least partially parthenocarpic, notably those developed by Jim Baggett at Oregon State.( Legend, Siletz, and Oregon Spring) You can also have seedless tomatoes in cool weather by using a hormone like Blossom Set.

The big box stores in general are pretty bad in keeping things appropriate to the location. Every year, they get those god-awful little sad sticks in boxes brought in during February, when we have 2 1/2 months before it would be safe to plant them out here in Michigan. And invariably, they have cultivars like Thompson Seedless grapes that can't possibly survive here. I've also seen other gems like rabbiteye blueberries, fuzzy kiwi, etc. Mind you, as someone willing to try via "extraordinary techniques" to overwinter out of zone plants, I find it interesting, but its bad and deceptive for the novice who doesn't know the difference. As far as the enormous operations that supply plants for the big-box stores, I find it fascinating that they have such complex systems set up, yet can't manage to find enough people to unload, unpack, water, and properly care for these plants once they arrive at your local Wal-mart, Home Depot, Lowe's,, etc. I always wondered how they made ANY profit at all, given the high cost of inputs such as energy, when they are all paid essentially on commission under these pay-by-scanned-sales programs, and so much of the plant material dies in the retail outlet due to abuse, neglect, and just plain market saturation beyond all reasonable ability to sell it all. But, they must, or it wouldn't happen. I guess the good side -- some of these places, particularly Lowe's, are pretty good about marking things down dramatically to move them -- I get good bargains on things all the time. Best was a few years back at the end of season at my local Home Depot, when they got down to the "everything in small pots is $0.50, everything in medium pots is $1, and everything larger is $2" by Halloween -- I ended up getting several cartloads of nice nursery stock for next to nothing -- Buddleia, crabapples, maples, all kinds of things. Best was a grafted dwarf mounding blue spruce, original price $80, for $2.

Since I'm always the first to complain, I thought I'd throw in a compliment. My Burpee orders have always been correctly filled with correct quantites. One year they packaged the seeds in with my tomato cages and I reported to them that they were an envelope of seeds short. They sent out the new seeds, no questions asked, and I later found the 'missing' seeds wedged behind a fold in the cardboard. Last year, after ordering sweet potatoes I decided that I really wanted a long season, regular potato. They changed my order without any issues. The issues you are having, however, have nothing to do with customer service - they are in production (ie putting seeds in envelopes). I would be VERY surprised if you called them to find that they wouldn't ship you out new envelopes of seeds given the short count in what you received. Good luck. Andrew

It's unrealistic to assume that all catalogue companies are going to be able to keep in stock something which may have become a "hot item"--that it took four months for your order to be filled sounds like they were trying to hunt down seeds to appease a difficult customer. ******* I understand that items may become unavailable due to crop failures and unpredictable demand. However, I believe that there needs to be communication ASAP with the customer, since most of the seeds or plants need to be started on a particular date. If they were "trying to hunt down seeds to appease a difficult customer", don't you think they would have told me that? Also, I would think that the larger seed companies would have less problems, do to having larger inventories. And I'm not sure if those were the reasons in my case, since this was not one or two items in my order that were delayed or unavailable, but around 15 items (about half my order). They couldn't even get me starter onions until June. I ended up buying them our of a barrel at the grocery store. There was no communication from them about the status of my order, until I contacted them in July to cancel the unfilled items in my order (around 10 items). They are also not honoring my request at that time that they remove me from their catalog mailing list. Mike