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Post by 12540dumont on Mar 21, 2012 18:38:34 GMT -5
She mounts soapbox snarkily.
WHY do people sign up to share seeds if they cannot fulfill their end of the proposal? There are some great folks that are SSE members and others who just take the money and run.
Or, WHEN they finally get around to sending out your seed order, they don't send the right amount of seeds. I guess I'll get the rest of my order by the time it's too darn late to plant it.
Ordering seeds has become a crap shoot. I swear, if this keeps up, I'm going to start naming names....
No one should take 45 days to send out a measly package of seeds and then short you on the number. I get seeds faster from Cesarz who sends them from New Zealand! I get seeds faster from Raymundo who sends them from OZ! For crying out loud, I get seeds faster from St. Joseph who lives in Paradise, which is no where near the post office. Dan Grunt, God rest his Soul, had a 14 day turnaround to send seeds. And I have never sent any of these people one silver dime.
She gets off the soapbox, kicks it across the room and stomps out of the house.
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Post by bonsaioutlaw on Mar 21, 2012 19:08:11 GMT -5
Write an email to SSE. If these people are taking the money and running then they need to know. I was considering joining to have access to some different genetics next year. I too will probably get a little pissed off if it takes 45 days or they steal my money. 14 days seems completely reasonable as I am sure this is not their day job.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 21, 2012 19:21:44 GMT -5
St Joseph has been sitting on a packet of Ashworth corn seeds for days, as the warm California weather marches relentlessly towards a scorching summer. He walked out to the truck with seeds in hand today, sat behind the wheel, figured it was too much effort to drive to the post office, then went back to bed. He gathered Egyptian Onions a few days ago between snow storms, and they have been promised since sometime last fall. And he carefully avoids contemplating about how long the peanut shipment is taking.
St Joseph boiled Butternut Pumpkin for supper tonight. He's still got 1.5 bushels of large Moschata's to eat before the scheduled planting date arrives in 9 weeks. He started eating the small and medium squash first... Each pumpkin gets progressively bigger and takes longer and longer to eat. Tonight, more than half the squash was put on the compost heap without being cooked. The seeds are fermenting in a glass in the kitchen window. St Joseph looked well tanned at a family get-together last week. It was really just the carotenes from all the squash and turmeric he's been eating: Fried squash, boiled squash, mashed squash, squash soup, baked squash, turmeric with squash, squash with turmeric, turmeric with potatoes. He fried up a batch of whole fresh turmeric roots last week for an after dinner snack. The next morning all but one of them were still sitting in the frying pan. That evening they were sitting in the compost pile.
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Post by castanea on Mar 21, 2012 19:53:17 GMT -5
The people who are out of seeds 3 days after the yearbook came out are very annoying. As are the people who have a request deadline that expired 2-3 weeks before the yearbook came out.
And how about all the people who have just decided not to follow the rules and set up their own rules? Like the guy in Minnesota who tells you that should send a SASE with you order. Or the people who change prices.....upwards.
And what is up with the people who send a bag of seeds with no identifying information of any kind?
Of course I do like the people who adjust their prices downward, who send extra free seeds and who give you information they have accumulated through the years.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 21, 2012 20:15:17 GMT -5
¡Ha! Seeds arriving without labels, and envelopes without return addresses on the envelopes are always interesting... ;D No worries though, I'm growing landraces: Usually I can tell what species it is, unless it's a brassica. So I just throw them all in a common lot with the rest of the incoming seeds for that species, and grow them for a year in a trial row. Might be something good in them. Might not. It's not like I'm running out of room to plant things. Then there are the seeds that come in plastic bags with writing on them, and the writing has become illegible before it arrives.
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Post by steev on Mar 21, 2012 20:40:20 GMT -5
Yeah, well, I have no real shallots planted because the person I ordered 3 varieties from never came through. The phony shallots I planted which turned out to revert to garlic are working out, though; it seems the gophers prefer them to "real" garlic, so they're a trap crop, as long as they last.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Mar 21, 2012 21:06:00 GMT -5
This topic looks familiar. lol... I've never been a member of the seeds savers exchange, and while i am slightly intrigued what might be in there, the fact is that it really doesn't sound worth it to me. If I'm going to pay to get access to seeds, then i want it to be an organisation that sounds trustworthy. This is the probably the only one i might consider paying to get access to rare and potentially diverse seed offerings: www.seeds.ca/p.s. Joseph, someday i will get around to sending you those devils claw seeds i promised you. lol.
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Post by castanea on Mar 21, 2012 21:28:54 GMT -5
What timing - Five minutes ago I received a package with two bags of corn in it. One bag has an illegible name on it. The other bag has no name at all. Luckily there is a return address so I might be able to figure out what they are.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 21, 2012 21:36:41 GMT -5
p.s. Joseph, someday i will get around to sending you those devils claw seeds i promised you. lol. No worries yet... It's still 11 weeks before I'll be scrounging through the to-be-planted seed box looking for any Devil's claws that might be laying around.... (Or 63 weeks, depending on how I count it.) The observer that lives near my fields reported this morning that they are still snow-covered, so no point getting anxious about planting yet. I noticed some lettuce has germinated in the driveway where I winnowed last fall. Not much hope of harvesting something from the driveway though. ¿And can I just say it out loud? Even though I have converted my whole outlook and seed genome to landrace growing, I still get nervous admitting in public forums that I jumble seeds together, and intentionally throw labels away. I wouldn't want y'all to think poorly of me for not caring as much as you do about the social history of your seeds.
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Post by castanea on Mar 21, 2012 22:00:13 GMT -5
Joseph, for some things I am growing landraces (okra), and for other things I'm not. So I totally understand what you are doing and don't judge you in any way. I do realize that some people in conventional gardening forums might think you a bit odd.
Also, part of what I am doing is just learning about different strains of different crops. In the future I may pursue land races with some of those, or I might just go on experimenting.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 21, 2012 22:11:48 GMT -5
I am rather liking packet-to-row or packet-to-hill planting for new varieties that come into my garden, (and even fruit-to-row for my saved seeds), but after the first planting, the left over seeds generally get jumbled together into a species-per-packet. It helps minimize the amount of space my seed stash takes up while still preserving the germplasm in case something goes wrong with the crops in the field.
I am excited about growing several okra landraces this summer. Seems like I'll have a better chance of success with a few different landraces than I had with the single inbred variety that I planted last summer.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Mar 22, 2012 5:12:49 GMT -5
Its definitely a crapshoot with the SSE but I feel it is overall worth it. In every situation where people get together under a set of specific rules, somebody is going to game the system. There are listed members on SSE who are listed only to basically get the listed member seed price. If you order a single variety from someone you actually tend to get it cheaper than if you had bought it from a seed company due to minimum shipping fees etc. So I think there are a certain number of listed members who just are keeping a couple of tomato varieties or claim to be who then use the SSE like a seed catalog.
I've sent out 10 or so requests this year and did OK with most of them. Still haven't heard back from Mr. Bonsall in Maine but I'm sure he is busier than most listed members.
My big goose egg for the year so far was kind of interesting. I get a call from our old landlady, someone we haven't spoken to for 5 or 6 years saying she's got a package and she'll forward it along. So it arrives and there are two prescription drug vials in it with seed inside them and two post it notes rolling around loose inside the box with the names of the seeds illegibly written on them. Fortunately I requested a squash and a tomato so no worries about telling them apart. But when I look, the tomato seed is pepper seed. Hmmm. I got a little ticked off, but then I actually looked at the prescription drug bottles which were filled for the guy I requested from. They were from February and when I looked up the names of the drugs they are both big doses of freaky serious antibiotics, if you are on them you're not supposed to drive or operate heavy machinery etc. So I figured he's sick, he's confused, he tried, let it go. I've got lots of tomato seed.
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Post by olddog on Mar 22, 2012 10:15:32 GMT -5
Yeah, I will second that, am so doped up on pain-killing and other prescription drugs, many days just circle around in confusion, (senior moments) this forum is the only thing keeping me going, reading you all's posts, and contributing when I can. Thanks, to homegrown goodness, and everyone here.
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Post by steev on Mar 22, 2012 10:57:20 GMT -5
Warning! Participation in this forum may have serious side effects: germplasm aggregation, rampant growth, and unrestrained curiosity may ensue. Chronic usage may be habituating.
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Post by cortona on Mar 22, 2012 14:28:17 GMT -5
in the past i'm a sse member for a year, i've offered some seeds that are old italian heirloom and nobody offer it and....nobody ask for it!!!! after this i've just decided that if nobody will ask for my seeds....i will stop to offer it via sse! but sometime i think about joining again...after this i've joined this forum and i realised that ...wo care about sse!!!!! ;-p
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