Seed Prices

[Florence Fennel]

One of the Nurse Managers at work is keen to start growing tomatoes. She had a try last year with no success, so has asked me to start off some plants for her. She would like Black Russian, so I've been trawling around for seed. I'm amazed that some can be bought for as little as 99p for 50, when you can pay as much as £4 for half a dozen. Do you think there's any benefit from growing the more expensive ones?

[mothhawk]

Well I suppose the more expensive ones have been more controlled in harvesting, packing, and storage to guarantee germination, but if you pay £4 and all six germinate, it's still got to be better value to get 50 for 99p 'cos you're bound to get at least 6 germinate, you'd think.

Last year I bought a packet of cheap (59p) runner bean seed, and out of 25 seeds, 6 were broken seeds, and 5 had damaged casings but 16 grew altogether. It's easy to see damage on bean seeds, not so on tiny seeds.

[Moopmoop]

Don't know if you're already aware that there are Black Russian tomato seeds in the VSP but that would be my first suggestion. I don't think expensive seed is worth the money unless they are very rare and can't be bought cheaper anywhere else.

[horticultural_hobbit]

My eyes get bigger than my belly when I browse through seed catalogues. I've been lucky, in that lots of seeds have been donated, there were magazine freebies too. That said, when places have a slash sale on, my resistance drops. I bought some celery and sweetcorn in a sale. Have sown the celary but not the sweetcorn yet.

Speciality seeds, I think, are always going tone expensive.

[Florence Fennel]

I splashed out on a few packets of Growsure from Unwins last year. Didn't notice any marked difference, so I'll not be doing that again.

[Thelma Sanders]

I don't go for the cheapest seeds, well maybe for things like courgettes that are reliable germinators....but I certainly don't go for the most expensive either - I try to catch the end of season sales for stuff that I'll need in the spring.

[Tee Gee]

In recent years I have taken to buying my seeds at the END of the season.

I visit Harrogate Autumn show every year and I find that some of the major seed suppliers sell their seeds a £1 per packet so I make up my shopping list for the following season before I go.

This means that that I may only have to top up with a few packets of the types that were not on sale the following spring.

Add to this I save lots of seeds e.g. I have not bought Tomatoe,Peppers and Beans for many years, so I guess I have got my gardening economics down to a fine art now!

[Potstubsdustbins]

Auntie Flo last year I grew Ethiopian Black (another name for Russian Black) from Heirloom Tomatoes Ltd. They weren't cheap but germination was 100%.

And of course you only buy them once.

Potty

[woody21]

Most of my seeds last year were from premier seeds on ebay and you get a lot of seeds for your money, nearly every seed germinated and very low amount of weak seedlings.
Already got 20 or so packs of seed from them this year and again same nice looking seeds.
As many packs as you want posted for 59p, chilli and tomato seeds mostly in packs of 80-100 for 99p... bargain.

2 packs of T&M Tomato seeds last year were awfull, seeds were small and diddnt look great and germination was poor with too many weak seedlings. These were free and this is probably why but they were in date.

I bought 3 packs of suttons seeds from the garden centre to try but they are expensive for the amount of seeds in the pack. f1 mohawk pepper - 8 seeds £2.99 being the most stingy pack.
The seeds look good, hope they germinate well.

Real seeds have some very nice stuff which is worth paying more for and i cant wait to try some of the things i have bought from them.

[hollychap]

another vote for premier seeds direct on the bay

[Florence Fennel]

Thanks chaps, I'll have a look at Premier Seeds. I tend to use MoreVeg (small amounts at a small price), or Seed Parade, but I do miss the colourful packets! Now that's just sad Flo

[hollychap]

premier seeds are packed in clear resealable bags nothing colorful

[amandaandherveg]

Another thumbs up for Premier Seeds - very fast delivery and great quality and price.

[Ananke]

I tend to buy my seeds from Realseeds, they don't have everything I want but most. I save what I can and used the VSP but I nearly died yesterday when I discovered I had no leek seed left and planned on sowing them that night so jumped into B&Q on the way home..... £2.79 for Sutton's :O They better be good.

[Paulieb]

My view is that generally quite often you're paying for the name.

F1 are worth more because they cost more to produce and in general produce better or bigger plants (bigger yield or more vigorous tho not necessarily better flavour).

Best time to buy seeds I find is Sept/Oct when a certain big garden centre chain drop their packs to 50p each (so got this year's Carmen cucs for 50p instead of £4.99).

The cheaper sites above are good and so are real seeds. I'd only pay over £2 for a rare pack but quite often it can be found somewhere for less.