December 2024: Seed Selection, Recommended Varieties, and Sourcing for Growing & Showing

30th November 2024

Cast your mind back to your teenage years. You’ve arranged to meet the latest love of your life under the railway station clock at 7 p.m. By 7:15 p.m., you’re still standing there, alone, with only your raging hormones for company, feeling grotesquely conspicuous.

Stood Up!

The crushing disappointment, the humiliation, the utter devastation.
“I think I must have something in my eye,” you mutter as they begin to water.

But wait—there they are! Running around the corner, clearly distressed. The train was late! You haven’t been let down after all. Devastation transforms to ecstasy in seconds.

And so it is when I sow seeds.

The packet promises: “Germinates in 7–10 days.” Yet, to this day, I still sneak a hopeful peek on day two, with childhood expectation—just in case, you never know! By day 11, with no seedlings in sight, despair begins to set in. Have I sown them too deeply? Are the seeds duds?

Then, on day 12, the seed tray bursts into life—a green carpet of seed leaves.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

It’s been like this for 68 of my 77 years. It’ll be a sad day when that anticipation fades—not for meeting lovers, mind you, but for sowing seeds. (And as for lovers, well, none I’m prepared to discuss with you!)

So, how do you choose seeds, and where to buy them in a manner that doesn’t lead to hormonal gymnastics and avoid emotional rollercoasters? Read on.

The Joy of Seed Selection

One of the most exciting times in the gardening year, for me, is selecting and ordering seeds. That time is now! By this point, retailers should have cleared out 2024 stock, and seeds for 2025 are sorted, packed and ready to go.

But be aware: seed packets are marked with the year the seeds were packed—NOT when they were produced. This means seeds produced in 2023 could be packed in January 2025 and stamped “Packed for the year ending December 2025.”

Not that seed retailers would do that, of course they wouldn’t……

But it does pay to understand the basics of how seed gets from the plants into the packets you buy.

How Seeds Reach You

The supply chain works as follows:

Growers around the world produce seeds and sell them—often on contract—to a relatively small number of Seed Houses (e.g., Tozer or Bingenheimer Saatgut).

Seed Houses supply to a vast number of Seed Retailers (e.g., Mr. Fothergills, Suttons, Tamar Organics), who package and sell the seeds to gardeners like you and me. Seed retailers generally do not grow plants for seed themselves, but the larger ones have trial beds for assessing potential new varieties recommended to them by the growers.

So, if you think some retailers have better seeds than others, well, most of them are buying from the same sources. But some seed houses and retailers are better at storing seeds and disposing of old seed than others. You must have seen seed packet stands positioned in full sun all day in garden centres. Avoid them like the plague. I keep all my seed packets in sowing month order in plastic boxes which I keep in a spare fridge. Dark, dry and cool = ideal storage.

Recommended Seed Retailers

Some highly regarded seed retailers include:

Marshall’s
Chiltern Seeds
Kings Seeds
Tamar Organics (now stocking seeds from the highly respected Bingenheimer Saatgut, as well as producing their own).

Understanding Seed Types

There are two main categories of seeds:

F1 Hybrids (F1):

These are created, crossbred, through a complex breeding process to introduce specific desired traits in the resultant plant.

Open-Pollinated (OP):

These seeds are left to cross pollinate among themselves, naturally. Rather like a Roman orgy.

This method produces much cheaper seed, but the downside is the plants need a lot of labour for ‘rogueing out’. That is, inspecting ALL the plants frequently, in the field and before flowering to pull out all the plants that are obviously not going to reach the required standard. Unfortunately, this practise has become expensive for the growers, so they are cutting back on rogueing out with the result that inferior plants are pollinating the rest of the crop reducing the overall quality of the seed and plants they produce.

Some comparatively small-scale British grower- retailers are still maintaining excellent standards.

My Preferred Sources

For open-pollinated seeds, I primarily use:

Real Seeds
Vital Seeds
(Both have excellent websites with guides on saving your own seeds.)

For F1 hybrids and OP that I can’t find at the above, I recommend:

Select Seeds
Premier Seeds
Tamar Organics
Simply Seeds

The Excitement of Seed Shopping

As I write this, it’s late November, and I’m already making my seed list. I can feel the excitement building already—must be those pesky hormones again!

I cannot stress enough the importance of buying seeds from trusted sources.

Looking Ahead

You may want to wait until January to order your seeds. That’s when Factsheet No. 4—“Seeds to Sow in February/March for First Crops”—will be ready. It’ll be available before Christmas, giving you time to plan and digest between the festivities. And I may have an extra titbit for you early in the New Year…

Meanwhile,
Keep Healthy, Keep Smiling, Keep Sowing.

Best Wishes,

Ramon 07594 456292
Plot 21 Silsden Road site