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Just a word of warning, you cannot rely on big firms for good seeds. I bought F1 Hybrid beetroot seed and you can see the results. The firm have agreed to replace the packet but you should get what the packet says.

I sowed what I thought were Boltardy, but have just pulled three "white with slight pink blush". What are they? Are they edible?

Thanks

yip   u always get the odd one or two  no worry  yip  you can eat  but not  colour of red as most people like   or you could eat leaves as spinach !!

You would think a big firm selling an F1 variety would get it right, especially with the prices they charge. I wonder how many newer gardeners may have had the same and not realised the issue was with the seed supplier.

InfraDig, as Graceland says if they are beetroot you can eat them, they just might not be as tasty as the ones you thought you were growing.

With the high price of F! hybrid seed no way should you get ODD one.!! surely the whole idea of F! is that all produce should be the same.

Quote from: GRACELAND on August 22, 2016, 19:29:32
yip   u always get the odd one or two  no worry  yip  you can eat  but not  colour of red as most people like   or you could eat leaves as spinach !!

There is a white beetroot on the market, 'Albina Vereduna'.  Could be one of the parents of the F1 beetroot?  Makes you wonder how the hybridisation process is done for beetroots and maybe it isn't hundred percent reliability.  If they achieve for example male sterility by a chemical application, it could be that some viable pollen survived the process.  The other issue with beetroot and all its relatives is that the pollen is tiny, wind blown and very light, so it could come from a long way away, for example from a sugarbeet field several miles away.  It may be difficult to shield the hybrid making facility entirely where airborne pollen is involved. 

The wrong one looks entirely wholesome and safe to eat, which is something.

I bought a packet of Johnson's Dwarf green curly kale, it was a monster! God knows what it was but it certainly wasn't dwarf.

Welcome to the forum to "the beadle"

It still amazes  me why people want to use F1 seeds, I grow my own stuff for taste, not uniformity, inbred chemically treated seeds will give you supermarket size veg that fit a dozen to the box regardless of taste and texture and no seeds for next year. The extra cost seems another rip off when it must be cheaper to get factory made seeds into a packet than collecting real seeds from good old fashioned varieties.  Alright you might get some cross pollination by the old fashioned way, but I have never had bad plants from good seed sellers, different if you only use pound shop stuff then you are asking for trouble.

Not an F1 fan myself... who wants a whole row of Cauli in one week... except supermarkets of course!

There are various improvements with F1 seeds. I am not a fan but some are worth the extra. For many years I grew Peer Gynt Brussel sprouts which were F1 they did not grow too high hence no staking , we used to pick in September for a large local show and I have picked from the same plants in March . Even F1 cabbages do not split at quick as normal varieties. We all do different things that is partly why there are flowervshows to see results.

Quote from: ACE on August 31, 2016, 08:14:36
It still amazes  me why people want to use F1 seeds, I grow my own stuff for taste, not uniformity, inbred chemically treated seeds will give you supermarket size veg that fit a dozen to the box regardless of taste and texture and no seeds for next year. The extra cost seems another rip off when it must be cheaper to get factory made seeds into a packet than collecting real seeds from good old fashioned varieties.  Alright you might get some cross pollination by the old fashioned way, but I have never had bad plants from good seed sellers, different if you only use pound shop stuff then you are asking for trouble.

I'd rather grow a F1 variety that gives me a reliable crop (like Radish Sparkler 3, Mooli Mino Summer Cross, ...) than something more ordinary that gives me nothing!

Yes, I grit my teeth when there's only 20 seeds in in pack rather than 200, but I just try to be more careful with them. (Perhaps if I did that with the ordinary ones they would work better?).

I think most of us are using F1 variety courgettes.  We have almost forgotten the wipe out with Mosaic virus about 1987.
And Brussel sprouts, nothing but F1 will grow in our soil, all you get is blown sprouts if you get anything at all with normal seed.

I have found exactly the same with Brussel Sprouts. F1 seem far more reliable.

There are far fewer seeds in an F1 packet but them we waste more seed than we use. I sow all brassicas in small cacti pots , putting 2 seeds in each and sowing about 9 pots which gives me all we need at one time. A packet will last about 3 years so the cost is spread out.