ouch!

[Liz and Steve]

Hi Folks,

I've just taken a seed delivery from chileseeds.co.uk - chillis, tomatoes and 2 types of Thai basil.

The peppers and tomatoes I'm delighted with but I was a little taken aback to find that the basil seeds only come 15 to a packet!!

At £1.30 a packet plus postage that's about 9p/seed - and I think that's pretty steep. I can buy a decent bunch of Thai basil locally for £1.50, so I'm not sure this was such a good deal!!

To be fair to the company they do have a statement in the small print at the bottom of the page 'each packet contains an average of 15 seeds, unless otherwise stated' so I can't say they hadn't warned me - I had seen this note when I made the order and I was happy enough to accept this for the peppers and toms but to be honest it never expected it to apply to the herb seeds as well.

So a word to the wise - this is a great site for peppers, and has my absolute favourite tomato, but you might do better to look elsewhere for herbs.

Regards

Steve

[veg4681]

Thanks for the warning. Ouch, I'd be quite sore too on finding only 15 seeds for a herb that is over a quid. I paid £1.99 for a packet of coriander from garden centre which I thought was expensive after shopping around later. You live and learn I guess.

[Phreddy]

I can buy you a packet of 'sacred' basil or 'hairy' basil here in Thailand and send it to you for less than that. Loads of seeds, don't know how many b/c they are small.

[diana]

I know you are not supposed to do this but I use corrianda seeds from my kitchen ones, I crush them before sowing and if you buy them in bulk as I do for my indian cooking (my other hobby) it works out much cheaper I have fresh corrianda all year round. In the winter I grow it on the window sill in my kitchen, in the summer in pots in the outside or in one of my raised bed.

[momol]

Diana,

Apart from coriander, the mustard seeds ( black and white),dried chilies the celery seeds and even the fenugreek seeds can all be grown from shop bought seeds ( from asian stores). I done it with the mustard seeds, fenugreek and chillies just out of curiosity and a friend told me, the celery was viable seeds too. Ever since I would once in a while sprout some mustard seeds and fenugreek for the fresh shoots.

momol

[momol]

I can buy you a packet of 'sacred' basil or 'hairy' basil here in Thailand and send it to you for less than that. Loads of seeds, don't know how many b/c they are small.

Phreddy, are you in UK or Bulgaria or Malaysia or even in Thailand now ?

Haven't seen you a while, welcome back.

momol

[diana]

yep Momo I have done it with fenugreek as well now going to try the other's

[momol]

I tried the star anise and several other seeds, but didn't work... you could get some lemon grass stalk and rooted it in water it will work too....
Apart from that, hmmm oh how could I forget all those roots stuff ( ginger, turmeric, galangal...). The kafiir lime seeds will work perfectly so as the mung beans but the soya beans are usually oven dried but if you could get the sun dried one, it will work... all the best....

momol

[veg4681]

I know you are not supposed to do this but I use corrianda seeds from my kitchen ones, I crush them before sowing and if you buy them in bulk as I do for my indian cooking (my other hobby) it works out much cheaper I have fresh corrianda all year round. In the winter I grow it on the window sill in my kitchen, in the summer in pots in the outside or in one of my raised bed.

Thanks for the info, the thought had crossed my mind and I also asked one of my Asian friends about this (having seen them in her garden) but never got a reply so went ahead with bought seed packet from Garden Centre.

Buying a seed packet wasn't the problem, it was the ridiculous price that I had foolishly allowed myself to indulge just because I didn't have anything else to buy from that GC...so I just ban myself from going there as much as I can. If we can learn from this thread, I think we can always find cheaper ways of buying seeds for herbs including the ways/variety Momol has kindly explained. We just have to accept that sometimes we get caught out by lousy seed deal.

BTW I shall be sowing some coriander seeds then on my window sill, it will work, yeah? along with Genovese Basil.

p/s Wow you're quite a long way up in Orkney and still cooking and enjoying Indian! Hope you're able to get your spices .

[diana]

Buy spices ect via ebay and a spice merchant in devon just made one of our favorits buttered chicken easy and tasty might post it one day