Seed sources are complicated and so are the reasons a person might choose seed from one company versus seed from another company. Many of the large corporate retailers buy some if not all their seed from exactly the same seed wholesalers, so what you get from one of them is likely the exact same thing you'd get from another of them. (And, in general, those large wholesalers are growing the seeds overseas where costs are substantially lower.) So, for example, under that scenario Seed Company A, Seed Company B and Seed Company C are offering you the same exact seed grown in the same fields under the same conditions and processed the same way. Why, then,do some companies have a better reputation than others for seed germination and for seed growing true-to-type? Because they all have their own ways of shipping, handling, repackaging and storing seed. Perhaps some of those ways are better than others and consumers see it in higher germination rates for example. So, if a consumer has been happy with seed from Company A, they'll keep buying from them. But if the have a negative experience, they may switch to Company B or Company C. With OPs, it is a little different. The more common OPs are available through large wholesalers, but many of the less well-known OPs also are often grown by the smaller companies or by contract growers hired by the smaller companies. If you are a very experienced heirloom tomato grower who knows the orginal seed source for a specific variety offered by a specific company, you may choose to order that variety only from that company because you know the seed came from someone like Craig LeHoullier. For example, both Craig LeHoullier and Carolyn Male have supplied Mike at Victory Seeds with his initial supply of some specific heirloom tomatoes they have been instrumental in saving/sharing. So, if you've grown Cherokee Purple from Victory Seeds, you can feel confident that it is the 'real deal' and not a similar but less impressive variety because you know Mike originally got his seed from Craig and has been keeping that line going. I'm sure Jay can tell you of specific varieties from specific retailers that the tomato afficianado crowd believe is 'the real deal' versus an identically named variety from another retailer that does not seem to be true to type or to produce fruit of the same quality. As with everything else, word gets around. Sometimes when a person is disappointed in a particular variety, someone will ask them about their seed source and may be able to steer them towards a supplier whose seed performs more like one would expect. That's why you'll see someone say something like "I'm only buying this seed from Company X from now on"....because experience has taught them that there is a difference in the seed from Company G and Company X. Some retailers repackage the seeds into their own packets instead of having a wholesaler pack it in their packets prior to shipping. There's a small margin of error in repacking and I think that's where most seed errors occur....when something like Brandywine Sudduth is mixed up with regular Pink Brandywine or something. Only a diehard tomato fanatic might notice the difference, but I guarantee the diehard fanatics WILL notice the difference and will spread the word. Sometimes I have grown Cherokee Purple [and I'm just using it as a example because there does seem to be multiple 'strains' (not true strains) out there--the original and the imposters] from two or more sources side by side and felt like I had two different varieties. The one I choose to go with in the future will be the one that performed most like I know Cherokee Purple should perform. We often see more seed mixups from some of the smaller retailers and I think it is because they are receiving and repacking seed from multiple sources and the more the seeds are handled, the greater the likelihood of human error. Sometimes a young seed company grows too rapidly and expands too quickly and their initial reputation for having pure seed that produces true-to-variey types can suffer accordingly. Sometimes a seed company that growns much of their own seed and contracts out the rest may have a quality issue for a year or two and that really hurts their reputation. I always try to give a company like that another chance because anyone can have an occasional screwup. I don't like to judge specific seed companies on their performance in the distant past because maybe they've fixed whatever was wrong and everything is fine now. However, if I get bad seed from them 2 years in a row, I'm less likely to order from them in the future. It depends, though. If a seed company had a major issue in a given year because their seed warehouse caught fire during shipping season, that's more forgivable than if a seed company seems to have problems every single year. If they have problems every single year, then maybe you lose confidence in them. It also matters if they take complaints seriously. Some seed companies are very diligent about replacing seed that underperforms. Others are more casual about it. I understand both approaches. The companies that are diligent about replacing underperforming or incorrectly labeled seed know that their reputation is stake and most of them go above and beyond to make you happy. However, it also is all too common for people who are new to growing from seed to blame the seed company for their own mistakes, and seed companies know that. Thus, some of them are slower to react to complaints because they know many cases of consumer unhappiness occur because the consumer is a greenhorn who's causing their own problems. I know some people who absolutely will not buy from some sources because of past bad experiences, and I know some who buy exclusively from a couple of sources. I try to spread my consumer dollars around because I like the idea of many companies competing for our business and succeeding. One of the worst things that can happen in the seed business is for consolidation to occur repeatedly leaving the control of the seed supply in the hands of just a few firms. Healthy competition for our seed business is good for all of us. If you watch who we order seed from, you'll see pretty quickly that the same 10 to 20 firms get most of the business from the experienced growers here and that's because, based on past performance, they've earned that business. Dawn

You can review a store or internet retailer at Yelp--they pretty much leave all reviews up unless they violate the terms of service. As a third party, they don't care if the review is good or bad. Twitter's another good third party. And retailers editing/deleting reviews is another reason I usually check out Epinions as well as the reviews at the retailer's website. Again, because they are a third party, which advertises that they are unbiased, it's in their interest to keep both good and bad reviews. What I always like to do is try to spot the "planted" reviews on-line. Sometimes there is a review that's so well-written and so complimentary that I suspect that someone connected with the retailer has posted that review. Especially when the other reviews are mediocre.

I have posted links to his blog many times it is one of my faves and provides a lot of great info for those with ereaders. Yes some reviews can be dated and if one unit had problems early on you may see bad reviews from that time period but now the unit has been updated and is working very well so keep that in mind. That was the case with the one I have the Pandigital Novel. The very first early models did have problems but they quickly put out updates to fix those issues. I currently own the pandigital novel and a couple of lookbooks. Enjoy them all very much. also on that blog site he posts every month a list of new free ebooks that are available.

I loved my mist diffuser so much I wanted to order another one for the motorhome. As I was looking at them on Amazon I saw this beautiful one and had to get it. Cooking smellls can quickly build up in such a small place and other smells too. This has been a wonderful addition to FREEDOM. It puts out more mist than my previous one and it can be set for various time periods and color choices. I bought Tranquility oil set by barnyard blue to go with it because it had all of my favorite oils in one set. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0714JPXTM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1