There's a few varieties of toms I'd like to have a go with next year, one being 'Santa F1'. Fothergills sell them for £3.45 for just 10 seeds. Does anyone know of any cheap seed sites that have a larger range? I've already had a look at alan romans but they don't sell it. Thanks :)
Plants of Distinction have them a little cheaper, £2.95 for ten seeds. Problem is, of course, being an F1, it won't come true if you save seed.
I was looking at some seed packets recently with a view to getting some Shirley Tomatoes, but the price was £3.99 for 8 (yes eight ) seeds. I bought six plants last season, perhaps that's the best option. Other than that I suggest you leave F1's alone and grow something like Alicante which are very reasonable in price (you may even be able to sell spare plants), or share the seed with someone else.
Santa ARE jolly expensive. Of the seed suppliers that we use, try the excellent Simpsons (highly recommended by many A4A members :) ) at £1.50 for 6 seeds
http://www.simpsonsseeds.co.uk/prod_details.asp?id=332&cat=48&sub=37
Seeds By Size also sell them, at £2 for 5, or £7 for 25
http://www.seeds-by-size.co.uk/tomato-red-fruited-varieties.html
and I also looked up Nickys Nursery, who often have interesting seeds. They don't do Santa, but recommend a substitute called Rosada F1, at £2.75 for 10 seeds
Seeds of Italy, from whom we bought most of our tommie seeds last year, don't seem to do a miniature plum tomato at all, though.
If you think F1 toms are expensive just look at Cucs! The whole F1 business is a con... and terminator tech is just insane. Go for open pollinated and save your own, like humans have done for Millenia!
::)
If you get a POD catalogue you may well find a traditional variety to suit you; they have loads. Then forget the F1's, buy seed at a more reasonable price, and save your own for next year. I ordered from them recently, and had my seeds very quickly. http://www.plantsofdistinction.co.uk/
yea seeds can be really expensive....but they do open so many doors for you. garden centres won't be able to sell every colour of every plant. and if you're paying that much for a packet of seeds.....10 plants would cost you so so much more. and you'll deifnately get more than £3s worth of tomatoes off it.
Santa is VERY tasty, but so are so many other tomatoes, including open-pollinated (= cheaper, AND you can save seed for free) varieties.
It seems Santa is hard to obtain: ' 'Juliet' (a grape tomato developed as a substitute for the rare Santa F1) ' from good ol' google, is one quote.
With the crashing dollar, and a superabundance of seeds Out There, it seems, tomato seeds are well under £1.00 per packet (20/30+ seeds) from US sites. www.seedfest.co.uk is one example, now based on West Coast of USA, and shipping at 88p per order, any size. Just google a bit, and although Santa is consistently expensive, there are some other wonderful seeds out there, and not too expensive.
Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on December 14, 2006, 17:02:26
If you get a POD catalogue you may well find a traditional variety to suit you; they have loads. Then forget the F1's, buy seed at a more reasonable price, and save your own for next year. I ordered from them recently, and had my seeds very quickly. http://www.plantsofdistinction.co.uk/
I like the Plants of Distinction selection. But if you want a baby plum tomato, even they offer only F1s - Mini Charm, Santa, or Summer Sweet.
It sounds as though baby plums might be a modern idea.
Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on December 14, 2006, 18:32:11
It sounds as though baby plums might be a modern idea.
I suspect you're right. We tend to stay with the old favourites like Gardener's Delight for mini-toms, but of course they're cherries rather than plums.
If you want to save seed and save a little money, as has been said before, try www.realseeds.co.uk :D
Wow, that american site (www.seedfest.co.uk) is offering 50 packets of vegetable seeds for under £14!
Realseeds is lovely! Well, the stuff I plant from them is! Plants of Distinction is convenient, quick and not too dear, either.
I rang - at 1 p/minute - a company in Oregon this week that I found on the web, but couldn't find any ref. to international shipping and its costs. It had some odd cuke (Poona Kheera cucumbers, that store perfectly for months) and tom stuff, at very good prices, and after the girl picked herself up off the floor at an English Gnome saying things like, 'Jolly good,' whipped out the order form and took my tiny order. Got an email tonight that it's been shipped, hooray!
Yes, it's well worth having a good sniff around.
Be careful of seedfest. http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/joomla/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,26/topic,25836.0
Gosh, thanks for that!
Just had a look realseeds website well worth a browing i for one will be sending off for some "proper" veg seed :)
Santa is one of the very few F1 toms I grow. And yes the price of F1 cus is ridiculous.
If you can get a few friends/fellow plot holders together try `Moles Seeds`-they are basically for the trade (ie large packets)but the cost saving is amazing.
Thank you so, so much to everyone for this. I'm going to have a look through all the recommendations, but think you might be right, Robert_Brenchley, with baby plums being modern. Looks as though if I want them, it's F1's, but will hopefully pay for itself. :)
I agree with you cleo about Moles Seeds. They are basically wholesalers, but open to the amateur as well. For next year they have imposed a 'minimum order' tariff of £5.00. I have been dealing with them for about five years, and they are by far the most efficient of the seed companies I have dealings.
The catalogue is fantastic, and they send you a year-planner with it. If you order from them you get an invitation to the Moles Open Days at the end of July, beginning of August (as marked on the year planner). It is an invitation to visit their trials fields free, and refreshments are provided. All you have to let them know is which day you intend to attend, and how many people will be in your party. It's an offer I would love to accept, but we live a bit too far away.
The downside is that you have to add VAT at the current rate to flower seeds, but as A4A is an allotment based site, I assume the majority are more interested in fruit and veg than flowers.
A visit to www.molesseeds.co.uk is well worth the effort.
hi CC
I grow a baby plum called Auntie Madge which is out of the heritage seed library catalogue, it is very nice roasted :)/shades x
Has anybody tried this site http://www.packetseeds.com/ (http://www.packetseeds.com/)? They have tom seeds at a fraction of the price, although none of the five varieties offered seem to be familiar to me. Perhaps there's an expert out there who can enlighten us. I'm a mere enthusiast, but at that price I'm a bit tempted.
Geoff.
Very interesting site euronerd thank you :)
Looks like someone has put together a new little internet business - I might give a small order a try, especially with some of the E. European bred melons 'for field cultivation' ::) ;D
Oooh, v. interesting: am tempted. Laaargge portions of seed, too, I see They look like the Legutko brand from Poland. Been buying and growing them for years, buying bags of the stuff when I go and visit my Polish friend.
Seeds in E. Europe are much cheaper than in the UK, and many of the varieties are well-known.
Have been hunting round on Polish eBay and Czech eBay equivalent for seeds, but none there. There is a Czech seed co. with a website, and Brocolli 'Cezar' is around 20 pence for half a gramme of seed. F1 seed costs 19 crowns, under 50 pence!
To give an idea of prices, Polish seeds in Poland are less than half the price for the UK equivalent, and Czech seeds are less than half the price of Polish seeds: I bought some courgette seeds last year reduced to 5 Cz. crowns, from 10 crowns, with over 41 crowns to the GBP. Now, the Czechs shop for cheap stuff inn Slovakia, so if someone can tell me the Slovak word for seeds...
Another fun one (I MUST get out more) that has free shipping, and a choice of seed packets from the UK, US and Canada, where you choose the brand from their range of seeds, is www.eseeds.com - my order arrived just now, 5 days after I ordered, complete with complimentary seed packet. I wanted an early melon, and chose the Lilly Miller (Canadian co.) 66-day Cantaloupe melon, hooray! AND I have got dozens of seeds for the Armenian cucumber, only £1.47; I chose the eseeds option of Botanical Interests, a Colorado firm.
Really interesting Garden Gnome, wondered if they might be Polish but not too sure of my Eastern European langages. So presumably they would grow well in our climate too! VERY tempting site, especially with your added info.
Where do the Slovakians go shopping? ::) ;D
I am with ValMarg cannot praise Moles enough, large packs I know but most seeds keep a year or two, and you can club together to share the seeds. Like Valmarg I have dealt with them for about five years now and find that they are very quick to put your seeds into the post for quick delivery.
Gosh, must try Moles...
supersprout, I am TRYING to find out where the Slovakians buy from: there must come a point - or country - where the customer starts getting paid to take the stuff...
I've been growing the Polish and Czech seeds for year: many of the varieties are identical to those on sale here, and I've noticed that many of the seed packets are produced/packed in that East European bastion called, er, Holland.
Was talking to a friend's au pair ;) recently - she is/was a Polish agricultural studies student.
She reckons that seed legislation is very different there - the law only requires a germination percentage of 40% for example (although I was told that reputable companies like Legutko do much better) and often the seed packets aren't hermetically sealed. They have a certain grace period before they have to conform to EU legislation.
Also, a lot of the Polish produced seed (as opposed to that produced elsewhere and sold in Poland) is covered in fungicidal powder - be sure to wash hands thoroughly after sowing.
She also says that a lot of the seed imported to Poland from Netherlands/Germany is being sold below cost price at the moment, to try to bankrupt the weaker producers. So make the most of current prices!
I've bought my seeds whilst on holidays abroad .You get twice as many seeds for half the price and they produce xlently,including those lovely big beefy tomatoes,flowers and all my vege.
Thank you for your comments about packetseeds.com. I set up and run the website. Most of the seed comes from Poland / Legutko, some (flowers) from my own production and selections. The proprietor Wieslaw Legutko is a large scale producer of both flower and vegetable seeds. The website gives a full explanation about this.
Your interest is appreciated.
nice to meet you dchisholm and welcome to the forum :) I put an order in a few days ago, looking forward to trying these seeds out in the New Year!
SSx
Dear Supersprout
They were mailed yesterday (Monday), they should be with you before Xmas subject to the Chirstmas post.
Thanks for the welcome.
Regards
D
wow! thank you for that D :D
are the wild flower mixes your own?
SSx
Regarding the wildflowers, I buy them in as a standard mix from one of the UK wholesale producers. They make up the blends from separately produced species. The three standards - general, shaded, butterfly - are the most common. I can source separate species if the need is large enough.
My own breeding / selection work is on the hardy geraniums which go on the site soon (hopefully this week!), Adenophora, Mimulus - flowers rather than veg. I found the Caliente Red hot pepper and that is going well - really nice plants that can be grown on a windowsill.
The Seeds of Italy catalogue dropped through the letterbox this morning. They do quite large amounts of seed at reasonable prices. Can recommend them as well.
can't wait to get sowing now dchisholm, really liked the printout of detailed sowing instructions for specific plants ordered, VERY much appreciated ;D
we try to please! any issues, pls let me know....
You could try eBay. When my local garden centre ran out of onion sets I bought some on eBay and they are happy sprouting as we speak. I can't vouch for the quality but the prices are good.
My mum buys her seeds in bulk for the whole allotment society and sell them in the shop down there. ;) i think the company she buys them from is called mr.fothergills or something like that. :-\ (//)
mr fothergills is one of the main three seed companies in the UK for home & allotment gardeners. The others are Suttons and T&M.
Quote from: dchisholm on January 03, 2007, 17:50:49
mr fothergills is one of the main three seed companies in the UK for home & allotment gardeners. The others are Suttons and T&M.
What about Kings? Since they do a discount scheme (with a very comprehensive catalogue) for members of NSALG ...
This is the link in the WIKI section of this website that people have added seed suppliers to. It Gives a little information about each as to what they are like and their prices. Direct link to monst of their websites too. If the link does not work , click on the WIKI section at the top of this page.
http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/joomla/component/option,com_mambowiki/Itemid,61/
What about Alan Romans seeds at 50p a packet is not bad limited selection ;)
Thanks for that grassroots - have not looked at those
I like Chase Organics and as HDRA member get 10% off as well...
8)