Well, I finally finished my last seed orders. I had already ordered the bulk of my seeds from Fedco with a local group. Tonight, I placed another Fedco order for eggplant (it kills me to have paid the $5 handling fee since if I could have made up my mind last weekend, I would have been able to order my eggplant then.) I got Rosa Bianca since it did well for me last year (as well as other years that I grew it) and so I can use it for comparison. Then I got Ping Tung Long and Swallow so I could try two different oriental types that have done well in my area. I decided to go with Swallow because it sounds similar to Ichiban, it got good reviews for my zone, and it looks like Ichiban is no longer in production. I ordered the 3 other things I needed from Jung Seeds because they had "Snack Face" a naked-seeded pumpkin (I had been planning on Baby Bear, but decided to try a completely hull-less variety instead) and the Yellow Doll watermelon. They had two types of cucumbers that fit what I was looking for- I went with Iznik, a 3-5 incher with very short vines. I've never ordered from them before, they have some negative reviews on Garden Watchdog, so I hope things go ok. randy41: I appreciate the offer, but I had my heart set on Yellow Doll- I love the reactions I get when I grow unusual varieties. :)

Ben, in this case it’s because the tag itself says Distant Drums rather than Distant Thunder. I do have Distant Drums but as you say they are so similar - and the color is already so variable - I probably would have just chalked it up to normal variation otherwise. My last mixup wasn’t so fortunate, it was when Abe was going out of circulation and I ordered 3 and instead got 2 Abes and a mystery yellow. But in that case all the tags were DA tags that said Abe so by the time it bloomed they were out of Abe and I just kept the one I got. I’m pretty sure it‘s Golden Celebration which I love. I’m not positive because it smells right but is a bit lighter yellow than I remember. Either way I’m happy with it so it worked out for me.

Like buford said above, Burling received my check on Monday. My roses were shipped on Tuesday. Thursday, eight beautiful rose bands arrived in a VERY well packaged box. All of the roses are well developed enough to plant straight into the garden, which I did with seven of them on Friday. The eighth rose, 'Carolyn Dean', is one that I have been wanting FOREVER and no one appeared to have ever put it into commerce (It is thought to be a sister seedling to 'Renae' and 'Dancing Doll', IIRC.) I ordered this because she had it (Yippee!!!), though I don't have a place in the garden for it yet. Into a pot she will go, to join the other roses that are living life in the pot ghetto ... for now. I will not hesitate to order from Burlington Roses again ... in fact, I plan to do just that later in the year. The roses I received were nearly perfect, the service was above and beyond, and shipping from California to Virginia was very reasonable. Looks like I have found myself another Go-To nursery to feed my rose habit. :) Here is a link that might be useful: Carolyn Dean on HMF

Mike, There are many reasons. The main reason is that different varieties are not just different named versions of the same thing---they have different flavors and other different qualities. I love green beans, but I don't want to eat the same green bean all summer long. I want different flavors and textures. Some varieties do not work well at all for freezing or canning, but others do. So I can or freeze the varieties that can and freeze well, but eat fresh the varieties that don't preserve well. Some of it is a hedge against the vagaries of weather. Different varieties perform differently in various types of weather. With a lot of different varieties, you increase the odds that you'll get great production from at least some of what you plant. I rarely have a year that is a true dud with very poor production. I believe that is partly because I hedge my bets by planting so many different varieties. Different colors of produce are, to me, the spice of life. Why eat only red-fleshed watermelons when they also are available with white, pale yellow, bright yellow, pink, orange and even swirled/mixed colors? If we're having a bowl of melon balls to eat as a light dessert after dinner, why can't it include red, yellow and orange melon balls? Maybe with a cantaloupe or honeydew thrown in? It isn't just about looks of having a wide variety of harvest times, flavors and texture either. As a cancer survivor of many years, the nutritional content of what I grow is very important to me. Remember that different colors of skin, flesh, leaves, etc., come from different phytonutrients, phenols and other compounds and for the best, most well-balanced diet, nutrient-wise, we should try to eat a wide variety of foods in many different natural colors. That is one reason breeders are working to develop blue tomatoes---to help us get more anthocyanins in our diets, for example. Scientists have found that different antioxidant compounds are associated with the phenols and other compounds that produce different colors in produce. So, if you eat a wide range of different colors of produce, you're getting a wider range of natural antioxidants in your diet. I also just really enjoy having a colorful garden. For some reason I cannot explain, it gives me great joy to bring more colors of produce into the house. I am perfectly content to carry a bucket of green podded snap beans to the house. However, when I carry a bucket of mixed green, yellow, purple, pink, red and bi-color beans to the house, I am almost giddy. I feel the same way when I have a bowl of tomatoes on the counter. Red ones are fine. However, a bowl of black, purple, pink, yellow, red, orange and bicolored tomatoes is not just a bowl of tomatoes---it is a celebration of the biodiversity that is found in tomatoes. Maybe for me, that's really what it all comes down to---celebrating the biodiversity that exists in Mother Nature. When I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s, I knew (or thought I knew) what vegetables looked like---tomatoes were red, eggplant was purple, corn was yellow or (if you grew your own, white), carrots and pumpkins were orange and celery was green. Why were they that way? It wasn't because only those colors of those vegetables existed in nature. It was because long ago the commercial growers, agricultural breeders. marketing folks and others involved in the production of and sale of produce decided that was how it was. After I began growing heirlooms and discovered that vegetables come in many colors never seen in the grocery store, I wanted to grow them all. I think that selectively choosing only certain colors of produce probably doesn't do us any good nutritionally. When I select different varieties, I always have my eye on their DTMs. For example, I don't want to choose bean varieties that all produce is 60 days. I want some that produce in 50, 55, 60, 65, 70 days, etc. Too many green beans at one time can be a problem. Spreading out the harvest over a longer period of time works better for me. As a bonus, when you have kids who might not be big fans of veggies, they can be tempted into trying yellow or red carrots, yellow or orange cherry tomatoes, purple broccoli, pink green beans, etc. It doesn't matter if the kids are your own children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews, the children of friends or whatever....if you can get them to try new veggies or fruit they normally shun because they "don't like vegetables" then you've just done them a favor. With regards to buying seeds of different varieties, I try to carefully research varieties before I buy them. I want to know that people who have tried them before me found them worth growing for some reason--flavor, disease tolerance, heavy production, drought tolerance, etc. I look for varieties known to produce well in hot summer climates and known to tolerate pretty wide swings in temperatures and moisture levels. It is very hard to know what ones to buy. When I first started gardening here, I mostly grew the same varieties I'd grown in Texas 80 miles south of where I now live. That worked out pretty well, so Willhite Seed Company has been my go-to seed supplier because it only carries seeds that do well regionally. With a lot of seed suppliers, you have to know if they are a nationally-oriented retailer or regionally-oriented. With some of the regionally-oriented suppliers, I have found that if there region is very different from ours, their varieties might not do as well here. The more I got into growing heirloom and open-pollinated varieties, the more I have gravitated towards a handful of suppliers whose varieties have repeatedly grown well here: Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, Bountiful Gardens, Victory Seeds and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. With Baker Creek, I have to be careful because some of their tomato varieties haven't done well for me. It is the same with Tomatofest. I avoid the big retailers who have seed racks in all the stores. Why? Because their seeds are chosen because they will grown well in the majority of the USA. Well, Oklahoma's weather is not necessarily like the weather in the majority of the country, so hybrids developed to do well in the USA at large may not do well here in our hot, dry, miserable little niche. I hope this answers your question, and we can discuss it further if you have more questions or comments. One last comment, and I sure this will not surprise you....when we collect eggs from our free-range chickens, we don't just bring white eggs into the house. Over the course of the year, we will bring in eggs that are white, light brown, dark brown, brown with darker brown speckles, olive green and pale blue. Biodiversity exists in the world of chickens almost as much as it exists in the garden. You'll never find a carton filled with only white eggs in my fridge! : ) Dawn