A friend of the family worked for a large commercial supplier who supplies most of the plants to Wal-Mart and Lowe's. She told how one day they were packing cayenne pepper for shipment. They ran out of cayenne tags so they used green bell pepper tags to complete the run. She told many other stories like this one which explained why you often get something your didn't intend to buy. If you are a serious veggie gardener, I suggest you find a dependable feed & seed store, a mail order supplier or a co-op store to buy your seeds and plants. When we had a serious veggie garden I never bought onion sets, instead I bought a bundle of onion plants in late February or early March which had leaves. It just takes time for them to make round onions. A dependable seed store can direct you to running or bush beans; running or bush cucumbers, crook neck or straight neck yellow squash, etc.which they sell by the ounce or pound weight. They often sell tomato, broccoli, cabbage, pepper and other plants in bundles. Good seed stores become rarer every year. After the ones around my town closed, I finally found one about 6 miles away.

BTW, when the pinto bean pods start to turn barely yellow, pick them. They are easiest to shell then and ready to cook fresh or dry for storage. If you dry them for storage, shell and wash them. A good, clean place to dry them is on a towel in the dash and back window deck of your car. Leave the windows up and parked in the sun with the flow through ventilation vent open. This is a good way to dry apples, too. When dried, pack the beans in plastic freezer bags which zip up. Bags which use twist-ties may not close well and weevils can crawl in and infest you beans. If you dry apples this way, be sure to put them in the freezer, They store much better and keep longer.

Onions are a cool season crop in the south. They are grown in the winter, early spring or fall, which is why yours aren't thriving now. The late winter crops were harvested within the last few weeks, depending on where in the south they were planted. There are several varieties of onions and they all have somewhat different times that they thrive and cultural practices that they like. Do some research on the internet, and check out the veggie garden forums. Just search for "onions" and read. There should be lots of good information. FYI, the bulb forming kinds are the most difficult to grow, though not impossible. When it comes to onions, and most other plants for that matter, knowledge is power. Read up before you shop.