Seed buying thread 2023

[Andraste]

I've just placed an order with moreveg.co.uk who I've not bought from personally before but have seen recommended on a few different blogs I frequent as a reliable supplier of smaller quantities. Although they don't have the massive range you might find when shopping from the bigger companies, they cover all the basics & had everything I wanted:

1. Broad Bean 'Aquadulce Claudia': 40 seeds £2.00
2. Mangetout 'Carouby de Maussane': 50 seeds £0.75
3. Climbing French Bean 'Blue Lake': 50 seeds for £1.50
4. Dwarf French Bean 'Annabelle': 50 seeds for £0.75
5. Perpetual Spinach: 40 seeds for £0.60
6. Asparagus 'Connovers Colossal': 20 seeds for £0.60

1 & 2 are particular types I really want to try for autumn sowing & I didn't want to leave it too late & find them to be out of stock everywhere.

As P&P was £1.90 (although it could have been free if I'd spent £15 on seed), 3-5 were picked up ready for next year: 3 seem to grow well for us (last year & this). 4 are a new type to us (grew 'Stanley' last year & this) & 5 is what it is (haven't seen any fancy names/types of it).

I can't justify 6 at all except they were only 60p - they sort of 'fell' into the basket

[Andraste]

My seeds were delivered today.

They were well packed in a 'jiffy bag'.

I'm quite impressed that each seed packed actually had a sowing/growing/harvesting guidance slip inside it whereas other 'cheap'/small quantity companies I've ordered from supply a simple name label, so no need to trawl the net for general dates/sowing depths etc.

[smallblueplanet]

I've just placed an order with moreveg.co.uk who I've not bought from personally before but have seen recommended on a few different blogs I frequent as a reliable supplier of smaller quantities...
As P&P was £1.90 (although it could have been free if I'd spent £15 on seed)...

I've bought from MoreVeg in previous seasons for their 'smaller quantities'. However with that positive comes a negative of buying seeds that aren't in sealed packets and hence you have no real idea of when they were originally packed nor how long they have been opened.

I mainly bought salad seeds varieties to try different ones, and had a problem with occasional low germination rates previous years. But this year I had a problem with low or no germination rates with quite a few varieties, not just salads. I had no such problem with salad seeds I bought in sales from the big sellers that were in sealed packets. If you don't mind taking a chance fair enough, but I no longer want to waste growing time - a product of getting older I guess but anyway there you go, you decide.

[Andraste]

Hi Smallblueplanet,

Sorry to hear you had bad results from MoreVeg seeds but it's always good to have a balance of opinions and we must 'speak as we find' if reviews are to be of any use to others.

Those I received from MoreVeg were labelled as 'packed in July 2023' with an enclosed slip promising "the seed inside is freshly packed from the most recent harvest". I haven't sown any yet but will try to remember to post an update as to how the germination rates are.

To be honest I've had some iffy germination of seeds from a variety of different suppliers. Some I've blamed on my own skills/lack thereof, some I've blamed on the weather not being ideal at the point of sowing, but with others there's been nothing to blame but dodgy seed.

For example, this year I had particularly dodgy results from both climbing and dwarf french beans - some were saved seed from last years packs that I carefully stored but I also bought new batches of seed that performed the same way. I also had a really low germination rate on the first pack of freshly bought parsnip seed - split into 2 sowings at different times - but then had almost 100% germination on another pack bought from the same source.

[smallblueplanet]

Hi Smallblueplanet,

Sorry to hear you had bad results from MoreVeg seeds but it's always good to have a balance of opinions and we must 'speak as we find' if reviews are to be of any use to others.

Those I received from MoreVeg were labelled as 'packed in July 2023' with an enclosed slip promising "the seed inside is freshly packed from the most recent harvest". I haven't sown any yet but will try to remember to post an update as to how the germination rates are.

That is interesting. I had an email discussion with MoreVeg including sending photos of empty cells where seeds had been sown and not germinated, alongside those in the same multi-cell propagator where other salad seeds had germinated. They weren't willing to easily concede their seeds were a problem. I got a partial refund in the end but had to force it via PayPal. I never received any such slip of paper, but it points out the difficulty for the sower in knowing how the date of the 'Moreveg packed seeds' related to when the seeds were actually harvested.
Some seeds have longer viability than others and so them being a bit less fresh might not matter. And so I am going to stick to buying seeds that tell me when they were harvested. I've personally burnt my bridges with Moreveg as I didn't agree with their customer service dealings and asked them to close my account. But there are plenty of seed sellers out there - I got a big batch of seeds from Mr Fothergill in their recent sale.

[Snoop Puss]

Sorry to hear you didn't have a great experience with MoreVeg, SBP. I bought a lot of varieties of seeds from them over ten years or so and never had any problems with any of them.

[smallblueplanet]

Sorry to hear you didn't have a great experience with MoreVeg, SBP. I bought a lot of varieties of seeds from them over ten years or so and never had any problems with any of them.

Yes, so had I. I guess you don't know how good customer service is until you need to contact them. Perhaps it was just a one off. But as I said interesting to hear about the slips of paper saying about seed harvest.

[Andraste]

Here's a pic of the labelling. x

[Bren In Pots]

A link to the new 2024 thread :-

Seed buying thread 2024 - The Grapevine (growfruitandveg.co.uk)