Earlier this year, I decided to try my hand at this gardening thing for the first time. I'm more of a "learn as you go" type of person, so I bought some seeds at Target, by Burpee, including early prolific straightneck squash. It only took me several months of diligent research to figure out that I was growing pumpkins instead.

Fortunately, I had the space to mostly accomodate the pumpkins (although, I did waste the season researching summer squash recipes in anticipation of my bounty). My questions are:

1) How often does a seed mix-up happen? Did I just win the backwards lottery of purchasing seeds? Or does it happen more frequently than I would expect?

2) I went with Burpee for convenience and because I knew the name. Did my issue have a greater likelihood to occur because I went with this company? Are there other "commonly" found seed companies (such as Ferry-Morse) that have a better reputation amongst the gardening community?

I would like to avoid having to order all of my seeds from a specialty company (although, I will if it's strongly recommended). I mostly want to be informed if it's common or not to have these sorts of circumstances to occur. Any seed-buying advice would be appreciated!