The beginning of my garden experiences was continued in Gentile's a fresh produce store. I've always known that Gentile's had many seeds so I knew I wanted to get my seeds here. You should have seen how many types there were for some vegetables. There were 8 types of beans! Every seed packet was $0.99 even though some were bulging like the peas and beans and others like the oregano and lettuce were so thin that it seemed there was nothing in there until you shook it, where you would be greeted by a pleasant rattle.
I bought 16 seeds though some I couldn't find like onions, potatoes, and such bulbous roots. The thing was that these tubers don't have seeds in them. They can be started by planting small onions or the eyes of a potato (the black lumps). Had help from wiki about the onion; it turns out it bolts and sends seed heads up but there are none in the onion itself. So instead of waiting to get those vegetables I swapped for radishes and spinach. I then went around the store and found the prices.
The herbs were pricey! $2.49 for 1/4 pound of basil! The rest was moderately priced. At least to me the inexperienced shopper. I couldn't find a couple of the vegetables so I'll come back in season. The crazy thing is, to a lot of people, everything is always in season! That's because of food coming halfway around the world. People have gotten used to that and have forgotten about "in season". Of course some vegetables like pumpkin aren't really needed in the spring so they're not bought, but I bet if there was a demand, pumpkins would appear any season. Anyway I thought I would have a savings. (My dad says profit sounds to industrial. True.)
As we drove, I realised that one of the seed packets had hybrid on it. I looked at the rest of the packets. They were from the same company but didn't say hybrid. It just occurred to me I should have emailed the company to find out. I was feeling uneasy. To me this wasn't natural. Even to my teachers, they said that hybrids and greenhouses were natural. But I believe changing the way a plant lives is unnatural. I came to reluctantly change my mind about greenhouses, but hybrids... I don't know. My dad explained how most seeds sold must be hybrids, changed a little to be immune to some diseases or able to fight them off. He said Genetically Modified Organisms were very unnatural but hybrids weren't. Think about it. With GMO crops, scientists are changing the very being, DNA, of a living thing to be bigger. They're not breeding them which is what a hybrid does. They're changing the plant by itself. Breeding is natural in nature. Forced breeding may be not perfect but much better than GMO. Because of the fact I wasn't going to return a $0.99 packet, I used it, and it's actually not doing better or worse, I think.
Here is a list of the seeds I bought.
- Sweet Basil
- Top Crop Beans
- Carrot
- Cilantro Coriander
- Cucumber
- Lettuce- Salad Bowl
- Oregano
- Sweet Snap Peas
- Pepper
- Calabaza Pumpkin
- Radish- Early Scarlet Globe
- Spinach
- Squash- Zucchini
- Thyme
- Tomato- Early Giant
- Tomato- Red Cherry
- I also got sunflowers and zinnias though I didn't count it in my experiment.
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