About 10 yrs ago, I invited my daughter to buy some veggie seeds for our garden. I didn't look at the packages very closely, just let her do her thing. Months later, we had the most beautiful watermelon growing but it was so small and round. About a month after it stopped getting bigger, I couldn't stand the curiosity anymore, picked it and cut it open. I was so disappointed to see that it "wasn't ripe yet" and was puzzled that the inside would be a peachy-orange instead of white-turning-pink, and no seeds were starting to form yet. I threw it on the compost pile and daughter and I vowed to "do better" the next year.

When spring came, we were shopping for seeds again and she said, "Hey look - they have the same watermelon seeds." How dumb did I feel looking at the package of seeds. The vines are SUPPOSED to make little round seedless melons with orangish/yellow fruit inside. I'd probably thrown away the best melon to ever come from our garden. Doh!

Another time I bought an evergreen tree and planted it so that when it grew up, it would block the view from my back door straight into the neighbor's back door. It was at the farthest part of my yard from the house and I couldn't even see it unless I walked toward it into the yard. A year went by and I noticed the tree hadn't grown at all. Luckily I had planted it with the tag which which I could still read. Upon more careful reading, I realized the tree was supposed to be 12-15" NOT 12-15'. It was an already fully grown dwarf specimen.