Seed porn

Having been offered an allotment plot last month, even before I had seen it I indulged myself in poring over a multitude of seed catalogues, both on paper and online.  I drew up a wish list of the (mainly) veg and herbs I wanted to grow and then looked for interesting varieties. After all there’s not much point in growing varieties that are easily and cheaply available to buy. My focus is on growing for taste – and to a certain extent appearance. I don’t mean that I want all uniformed shaped and sized veg but that I like a variety of colours eg red and green lettuce, purple beans and a mix of tomatoes.

I did look at all of the major seed companies and was on the point of making an order when I came across the Real Seed Catalogue and having read about their ethos it all made sense to me. They eschew F1 hybrids in favour of open-pollinated seed that will breed true and enable saving of seed for future sowings. Although the catalogue includes many heritage varieties they also have new varieties where they produce better flavoured results and imported plants such as Oca which they have trialled to see if they do well in UK growing conditions.

Their website has no particular bells and whistles but is easy to navigate and provides an image, detailed information about each variety, and notes on their culinary use.  I easily put together an order for about 30 packets of seed which arrived within a few days. Each pack includes basic growing details and further notes included cover how to harvest seeds from each for planting next year. 1p of the order cost goes towards membership of the Real Seed Club. This membership enables the company to supply seeds that are not on the EU official list of vegetable varieties.

Although Real Seed do include a range of herbs in their catalogue I found a greater variety (and cheaper!) at More Veg who specialise in selling small packets of seed for home growers with many costing only 50p. I bought over 20 packets of seed for about £15!

And to add to my supply of seeds my neighbour today handed me about 20 packs of seeds that she had spare – mainly freebies from gardening magazines over the last 12 months or so.  They may not be varieties I would have chosen but I’ll certainly try and give some of them a go if I have time – and space.

My kitchen window sill is already full of seed trays (mainly old egg boxes and toilet roll tubes as I’m not buying any new plastic trays) so I’m waiting for the weather to warm up so I can start more off in my garden shed, and fairly soon on the allotment itself once I have some beds set up. That’ll be a job for this weekend – pallet collars are arriving on Saturday so now its time to order a trailer load of manure….