by Chaparral » Sat 18 Apr 2009, 12:56:00
Home Depot has a lot of fruit trees and they seem to tailor their offerings to the area in which the particular store is located. I'm in Sunset Western Garden zone 23-24 on the coast and the local store in the same zone stocks things like Anna, Ein schemer and Fuji apple trees (about the only ones that have a ghost of a chance to produce here).
WRT seeds, I only grow heirloom varieties and I always let a few plants set seed every cycle. This year i did not even have to plant chard, romaine, beets and radishes. They came up in abundance (as much as I can handle) where the seeds fell in the beds and pathways from last summer. I purposely saved pole bean and fava bean seeds and have well over 200 plants. It's ridiculous. Some are even growing in the pathways or in spaces in the driveway.
The idea is this: If I plant 20 "cut & come again" lettuce, let the last 2 or 3 bolt, flower and set seed. If I plant a few dozen radishes, let 2 or 3 plants flower and do their thing. I can get 2 to 3 sets of fava beans off my plants so for maybe a third of the plants, i'll let them keep that last set of pods to maturity. i'll then collect the pods for the cool season when it's time to plant. I can only do this for about a dozen different crops but as time marches on and my soil develops, I can add new varieties here and there.
One thing tho, i've learned the hard way about F2 offspring from hybrid seed: got a lot of really stunted, poorly producing (but super flavorful) broccoli coming up all over the place. Avoid that hybrid stuff if you're afraid of not being able to secure seed in the future and don't just hoard heirloom seeds, plant 'em, grow 'em, let them bolt and flower and set seed and start producing your own. You might find yourself in the position where you are able to give them to friends and neighbors who take an interest in Liberty Gardening (good term Wis Cur!).