True Horticultural Humor - Turkish Seed Packets

(Note:  If you are extremely easily offended consider this your warning, but 
I had a good giggle!)


Hi all,

Yesterday I went down to the Istanbul plant and bird market near the
spice bazaar.  It's quite a trip. Plant-wise it's not spectacular--flats and 
flats of pansies and primroses and stocks, and a few really common shrubs.  
Not to mention the occasional pile of wild-dug Urginea bulbs being sold at 
high prices as Amaryllis and tulips, or even as Bromeliads!

But yesterday I did find a small treasure: "Stella" brand seeds.  It seems 
some unfortunate Stella fella was charged with translating the names and 
directions on the packet into English, and knowing minimal English, took a 
Turkish-English dictionary and tried to do a word-by-word translation.  Not 
a good idea when you are working from a language as radically "other" as 
Turkish, as evidenced by the results, which I share here:


                  STELLA
       Navel With Cos Lettuce Semen

Specialities:

This type of production is green colour and large leafs type.

This kind of production isvery tight and straight navel type.

This kind of production is seedling plant grove up cold pillows.

This kind of production ispart of navel colour is yellow.

This kind of production isvery stron about cold weather and middle early.

This kind of production is weight head about 1.5 - 2 kg between changed.



The other type of "Cos Lettuce Semen" (which, it must be added, sports a 
picture of a very healthy-looking pepper plant) has the following 
specialities:

This kind of production is curly leafs of type.

This kind of production is green colour and crackly plant.

This kind of production is very delicious that for rearon many people prefer 
this type.

This kind of production is main-part weight 400-500 gr.

This kind of production is reaping time normally condition 65-70 days.



There was also a package of with a big picture of a watermelon, and the 
simple statement, "Semen".

The scariest thing is that all the above makes perfect sense to me...a sure 
sign that I have been in Turkey way too long (or just long enough perhaps)!  
:)

Bob


P.S. Maybe I should say to any Turks on the list that this is not meant to 
belittle either Turks or Turkey - After all it works both ways and many 
times I have watched Turks, with infinite patience, trying to make sense 
(with a steadily intensifying look of incomprehension spreading over their 
face) of a westerner's best attempt at a coherent Turkish sentence!  
Türkleştiremediklerinizdenmişiz yani...)  :)
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