Ezzirah, It isn't right but the stores do it and they always have to some extent in the last couple of decades, although I think it has been much worse the last 5 or 10 years than it used to be. Gardeners often are impulse buyers---getting excited and all ready to start the season too early, buying plants or seeds merely because of outrageous claims that cannot be verified and that sound too good to be true, buying herbicides, fertilizers or pesticides that promise dream results, etc. Retailers take advantage of that. As gardeners, it is our responsibility to ignore the hype and to educate ourselves before we spend money on plants, seed and products. Last year I saw 6-packs of sugar snap peas (fresh shipments, not old ones) on the shelves at some local stores in late May and early June. How many new, unsuspecting gardeners bought them and took them home only to have the heat and disease kill the cool-season plants 2 or 3 weeks after they were purchased when the warm-season was well under way? It is just as wrong for the stores to sell cool-season plants in latest spring or early summer as it is for them to sell cool-season plants a month, 2 or 3 before their correct planting time. Will it ever change? Only if educated gardeners stop buying the plants too early, having them freeze and then replacing them. (That's a win-win situation for the stores 'cause they sell twice as many plants.) Stores are going to give gardeners what they want, and if people are requesting warm-season plants in January and February, the commercial growers and the retail stores are going to do their best to fulfill those requests because they know if they don't have the plants people want when they want them, those people will take their business elsewhere. That is just how things are now, and unfortunately it puts nursery growers in an awkward position where they are growing and selling plants too early, even though they know better. Back in the olden days when I was a kid in the 1960s, you didn't even have to know what to plant when because the nurseries didn't get the plants in too early. So, if you walked into a store and saw onion plants or bundles of cabbage plants (they were young plants sold in bare root bundles that you had to take home and plant right away), etc., you knew it was time to buy them, take them home and plant them. The local stores wouldn't have tomato plants in the stores until maybe a week or 10-days before your local recommended planting times. It made it easy for inexperienced gardeners to learn the order in which plants went into the ground since it wasn't possible to buy plants too early, plant them too early and lose them to frost. Nowadays, in the stores, pretty much anything goes, and that can cost inexperienced gardeners a lot of money. Also back in the olden days of the 1960s through as late as the 1980s, most plants bought in stores were very small. My dad used to buy tomato plants in little pots that were maybe 1.5" x 1.5" in the 1960s and 1970s and when I started buying tomato plants on my own in the 1980s, they were available in either small six-packs or 2" x 2" pots. The larger plants in 3", 4" or even 5" or 6" pots slowly became available beginning in the 1990s. Now, in the 2000s, people can walk into stores and, if they are willing to spend $20.00 or more, they can buy tomato plants in 3 to 5 gallon pots in about May and those plants will be in full bloom and have half-grown fruit on them. I'm thinking that people willing to pay that much for one tomato plant will be eating some mightly expensive home-grown tomatoes! Retail has turned into a very regimented, calendar-oriented industry that puts product of all kinds in stores well before we should be buying them. Who needs to buy a bathing suit in January or kids pool toys in February? Do we really need to buy Easter candy the day after Valentine's Day? How about school supplies being in stores around the Fourth of July? Christmas decorations in September? I hate the way the stores rush the seasons in all areas, not just in gardening. Dawn

We believe that our bodies/our health are our #1 asset and that our financial situation is in the next high tier. So, in general, we believe that if we eat food loaded with antibiotics (mass produced meats/dairy) and chemicals (foods have somewhere near 15000 man made chemicals in them), then we invite health problems that could otherwise be avoided and we incur extra medical costs. So, we grow what we can and food shop to focus on healthy foods. We seriously walk at least 5 evenings/wk - year round. Knock on wood and thank god, we don't get sick very often, but I do have some medical issues that require regular oversight and which I can't eliminate. We also believe that if we buy quality, we won't be rebuying the items again and again. So, we save up for larger purchases and only get a "new" one when the old one is shot. We often look for used, refurbished items as our "new" when we need to replace. I'm using the coffee pot that my mom &dad were given when they got married in 1954 (and no it doesn't make cappucino/lattes!!), we use a drill that I purchased in 1980 which is all metal. We use a 1950something toaster which we purchased used. We buy garden and other tools at garage sales and we try to avoid buying items with plastic parts. We use cotton and wool blankets, we don't redecorate every 6 months. Because we eat fairly healthy and we exercise, we don't change clothes size - yes, we can go up and down, but we get back to the base size before a size change is in order. Staying the same size is a blessing and a curse. We try and make sure that most of our clothes are all cotton/wool/silk because we have found that synthetic materials wear out and get ratty looking alot faster. We don't buy "trendy" styles and we always look reasonably timeless. We wait for clothes to wear out but because we do, we don't always wear the absolutely most current color or style. And that is ok. My husband grew up in a military family and money was tight. I grew up in a middle class family, but my parents had lived through the great depression - I always heard about how much things cost. Sure, sometimes we don't have a choice but to buy cheaply made items, but we do what we can to avoid it and we shop with local firms. We find that it's pretty easy to avoid Walmart and live within a budget at the same time.

Well I did go out for black Friday but not until 9 a.m. The angry crowds are gone by then and replaced by much nicer crowds. We got the same deals that happen at midnight. The only thing we couldn't get was the electronics but we were not looking for that anyway. My daughter and I didn't spend much. We each got a shirt and a pair of shoes and a couple of other small things. I even gave a stranger my $10 coupon that I wouldn't use. She was really grateful! The only problem I had was shopping with my daughter. I couldn't get her anything for Christmas but I did make a note of all the things she was wishing for. I needed ideas and I got them.

We have a 99 cent store close to my house,and it was the first one of those types of stores to come to our area several years ago.I go there before i go to the grocery store.We have a freezer section,fresh fruits and veggies and almost anything you can find in a regular grocery store,and name brands as well.There fresh fruit has been great,pints of blueberries for .99cents,as well as strawberries etc and most of it grown right here in Calif. They recently got a new bread vendor and oh what joy that is,sour dough,multi grain,and several other great brands.It's the only place we buy saltine crackers now,they are made by Harvest Table or something like that and are just as good as premium and the other. I have been going there for years and have never found any outdated stuff.Love that store!!! Kathi