I emailed my garden center about the scotch bonnet issue and their response is kinda wild?
Hi I'm the shroom poster from yesterday and decided to email my local (non-chain) garden center where I get all my plants and herbs every year to kindly let them know about the scotch bonnet issue since I bought one from them the past two years and both have turned out to be Jamaican mushrooms. They emailed me back this morning and I thought the response was a bit sassy and actually made me not want to buy anything at all from them anymore?:
We are fully aware of the issue. Mislabeled pepper seeds have been a
major problem in the industry for the past two decades. About a decade
ago we did a story in our newsletter on the issue. Nearly all garden
centers get their seeds from only a few national vendors so the problem
is widespread. We need to use big batch, cost effective sources. In
addition, tag swapping at garden centers is a whole separate issue. Some
customers do it just for fun (believe it or not!) and kids are notorious
for pulling and switching tags. Our advice is if you want to be sure
what you purchase is true, order seed from a reputable farm
online...i.e. Seed Savers, Johnny's or even smaller specialty sources.
Like... sorry I didn't read your newsletter 10 years ago and also it seems like a poor business model to sell things you know are fraudulent??
Posted Aug 5, 2026, 1:32 PM UTC