Chickens, chickens, chickens . . . and seeds

My wife picked up some more chicks yesterday. The manager of the farm store told us that the "Easter Chicks" they sell that are died different colors are White Leghorns and we wanted some more of those. They had six different colors and there are six of us so she got one for everybody.

Of course the kids wanted to name them. I got the yellow one and called it Big Bird. The fact that none of the kids understood that must say something about homeschooling. One child named his "Peep" so my wife named hers the "Purple Peeple Eater". I'll be glad when they lose the colors and start laying. For that matter I hope they are female - I haven't checked.

My better half also got 30 fertilized eggs from a friend who also loaned us an incubator. She told us that she got 4 to hatch out of 25 eggs on her first try. Recently she has been getting 25 out of 30. Maybe we'll get lucky.

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We ordered a bunch of heirloom seeds. We looked at the seed packs and we priced them against just buying the seeds and decided to order just what we want instead of a prepackaged set. I think we saved money. We also tried a few things we haven't planted before like spinach and turnips.

Heirloom Organics raised the price of their seed packs way up and that made some difference. The "Family" package for $149 suddenly became the "Homestead" package for $249. Quite a difference.

While we were shopping around we found several places online selling seed packages that included heirloom flower seeds, so check out what is included. Also, when they claim the package has "seed count 165,000+" be careful. One ounce of carrot or radish seeds may have 25,000 seeds in it or some outrageous number like that. Not that you aren't getting the total number of seeds, but how many carrots and radishes are you going to plant?

Some places have seed packs that tell you what varieties they have but don't tell you how many of each you are getting. Nothing like getting a seed package that has a total of 25 kernels of corn and 25,000 radish seeds.

I'm not knocking the seed packs or any particular vendor. I'm just telling you to read the fine print and check the details so you will know exactly what you are getting. If they don't show the details then ask before you buy.