Bessie Bessie, sending in a check before your order is confirmed sounds like a nightmare; that gives the vendor two choices if some items are gone- return your check and possibly lose the part of the order they CAN confirm, or substitute the missing order items and possibly make you upset. Even worse is they might feel guilt-ridden, and give you some of their planting stock- all vendors have done it, and I've lost a couple varieties by overextending like that. Any which way causes problems or headaches, and might encourage those good folk to 'hang up the hat' and stop selling. Goodness knows every year I'm not sure if I'll continue the next selling season.
Edited to say, yeah, maybe I should have remembered the Boleys ask for the order form to be mailed in with a check. I forgot that... when I ordered, I emailed first and waited, but if they don't say to do that, well.... that's their thing.
