alternatives

so I really want to grow rice here,
and I want basmati rice
I know it is grown in california because I see this in the stores,

but as hard as I looked I could not find seeds for it,
now if I was importing tons of seeds from china, or india, or somewhere else, then I could likely get them,
but nothing in any regular person obtainable size,

so I formed a plan,
the plan was to get organic (so it is not irradiated) brown rice,
now white rice and brown rice start off as the same seeds,
it is just a matter of how much you mill the rice to get one or the other,
so I figured that the brown rice might have enough of the seed left to sprout,
so I bought a bag of organic basmati rice from california

and then I hand sorted through every grain in the bag,
I looked for ones that had missed the milling entirely (and there were 3 in the bag)
also looked for ones that looked like they were mostly intact,
and I put the best ones in a cup with water,
and some have sprouted ! (look for the tiny white sprout on the side of the end of the grain)

so I now hope that they are short enough growing season for me to grow here,
I will find out in the fall...
the point to this is that if you can't get something the official way,
there are alternative methods of getting seeds.

also an update on the garden coming up,
the beans and black eyed peas are up,

 the cucumbers are up

and one of the peanuts is up,
it sure is gardening time around here