My seeds arrived about 2 years ago, from China, entirely unannounced, and directed to my address in London, but with no name.
They turned out to be strawberries. Nothing unusual about them as far as I can taste...
They inspired me to make a service for other people to get random gifts from China... [1]
So far, the only gross error I've had was a getting sent hairclippers instead of a Dreamcast controller. Could've used the clippers, but wrong voltage :(
The examples you give like a bike repair kit are not really enticing.
I only need that from spring to summer. My greenhouse isn't setup yet.
From googling there appears to be quite a few, both curated and otherwise, what I saw ranged from $3 per shipment to $15+
Oops!
Keen to try it though.
> A gum can be produced from the bark which reportedly treats edema, while the dried fruits have been used as a diuretic.
You keep it inside and take a picture and you will know if you will get nice flowers, or vegetables, or...nothing. Just leaves.
As a kid I loved to plant seeds in plastic cups and see what grew out of it, and trying additives to see if they could help the plant grow. Once I grew a little tomato, and ate it. I didn't drop dead from tomato consumption.
It's innocent and safe. The government should have no business regulating what people do with seeds.
Your passion for experimentation and cultivation is awesome. I get that you don’t want the government telling you what you can and can’t do. So, instead, what if you look at it as a fellow citizen asking you to please not plant random seeds from China in the ground outside, unattended.
Still, I fail to see the harm of growing the seed inside to identify the plant. People here have reported receiving cucumbers and strawberries. No one has reported receiving vines or anything else.
I am very surprised by the level of fear and paranoia regarding everything and especially China: we are looking at horse gift in the mouth, then saying it is a bioterrorism plot. Unbelievable!! When I was a kid, that would have been the best mail-order present ever!
Also, regarding kudzu and the like, I fail to see the harm. The environment changes. We may not like that, but that's how life is. Instead of trying to undo changes, maybe we should adapt to them.
Kudzu seems good for livestock, rich in protein and isoflavones. Trying to burn it seems to be due to a distinct lack of imagination and profit motive. It's a free input!!! Find new ways to chop it down to feed it to livestock. Make it into a food supplement.
Anything looks better than just destruction and nostalgia for the time it wasn't here. It's here now. Adapt!
If I ran things, I’d develop an avena-specific herbicide, and drop it from helicopters every spring.
Replacing it with natives would lower the fire risk substantially, and probably also cool the hills off a bit during the summer.
I feel like that boat has flown, or whatever. It's kind of like saying the government should have no business checking passports or levying an income tax or something.
But I have read about the old time hackers, who yearned freedom and experimentation. It seemed to have been widespread: I have seen movies from the 1980s, and noticed the same thing: people seem less fearful, more open and ready to experiment.
It may sound silly to you, but I was awestruck by "Bill and Ted excellent adventure"!
Even with all the modern technology we have, I wish I had been born 20 or 30 years earlier, when freedom was still a thing and innocent fun was deemed innocent by default.
different strokes for different folks i guess, but that is absolutely something i would do. or would have done if they'd arrived in may, planting in august is kinda pointless where i live.