How much seed to buy?

[twave]

Hi folks, I'm looking for a bit of advice...

How can I work out what it's going to cost to plant up a 3.1 acre site?

I'm involved in a project to set up a community market garden. It's early days yet as we are waiting for council approval to use a local site.

I have been tasked with working out an approximate cost for buying seed/plug plants/fruit to plant up the site so we can apply to different organisations for funding. Fruit and plug plants are fairly simple to work out but my head is spinning trying to work out how much to allow for veg seed.

We don't have detailed planting schemes at this stage so this will just be a ball park figure. I was going to work out roughly what area a pack of seeds for the obvious veg would cover, assume a 60% loss for thinning and non-germination, then multiply it up by the total area.

Does this sound about right? Does anyone have any experience they can share?

[twave]

[Digeroo]

http://www.stroudcommunityagriculture.org/join.php
http://www.makinglocalfoodwork.co.uk/about/csa/index.cfm

I am sorry no experience but a friend is very committed to stroud community agriculture.

[saddad]

It would depend on how many "reduced" items you could buy... do you have a set budget? Wyvale 50p packets are really good but only available at the end of the season. Some seed merchants do bulk deals... "seeds by size" come to mind... if you are growing larger amounts of fewer varieties will that will kep the cost down..  :-\

[Ian Pearson]

A big question!
I think you need to plan what is going to be grown first.
For example, you might have an area for annual vegetables. This will be an 'every year' cost in seeds (tho' you can save some from the first year's crop)
You might also have a perennial area (soft fruit, top fruit, herbs etc). But rather than trying to bring it all under cultivation in the first year,it might be worth starting with a nursery area, growing a few of each crop, and multiplying them up from cuttings/offsets/root division etc. This will be a 'once only' cost. In the mean time, the rest of the ground can be mown to control weeds, or sown with green manure, or cleared by chickens.
Remember that you can get much better seed prices by buying in bulk from trade suppliers.
An exciting project!

[chriscross1966]

Get some piglets in and you'll get combined digging, weeding, fertilizing and sausages.....

chrisc

[ajb]

Hello,
Have a look at moles seeds - they tell you how much seed you need per acre/hectare and sell in vast quantities!

[cleo]

Get a copy of Moles seeds catalogue.

It gives the average seed count per gram and a target population per acre-that should help??

www.molesseeds.co.uk

Their  prices are very reasonable if you are buying in bulk and I have found them very reliable

[cleo]

Great minds think alike!!!

[ajb]

Great minds think alike!!!

Snap  ;D

[twave]

Thanks for all your replies. There are some good points here. The moles seeds link looks really useful.