seed bills

[hedgewizard]

Since I've just seen someone complaining of spending £100 on seed this year, can we have some tips on how to reduce your seed bills? I have a few suggestions myself.

Firstly, storage. Seed is best kept at a low, even temperature and low humidity, so ideally an airtight container with a dessicant in it, in the fridge. Not having a cavernous fridge I just make sure my seed box is kept away from heat sources, and that's good enough for me. Not sure about eco-dessicants... so far I've heard that a scoop of condensed milk or a sugar cube will do well provided you replace them now and again (depends on how often you open the box!) Some seed does not keep well, for instance parsnip (two years tops) - but others keep for ever and a day, such as celery (germination from 10-year old seed is not unheard of) so do some reading. It's worth remembering that plants grown from old seed may not establish so quickly as from fresh seed, so a watchful eye and a little TLC might be needed.

Secondly, buy collectively when you can - there are big savings to be had here if you have the will and organisation to do it. For instance, this year's sweetcorn would have cost me a couple of quid for 30 seeds in the garden centre, £1.55 from Garden Organic for 48 seeds, or £2.45 for 50g of seed - about five times as much - from Moles seed merchants. Too much seed for me to use this year, but my digging buddies will take some and the rest will store for a year or two. One painless way to buy collectively is through a local horticultural society if you have one.

Thirdly, let a few plants come to flower and set seed, and save the seed for the following year. What could be simpler? There are guidelines to help you here, and if you want to get a little more into it have a look here. You'll find that there are seed exchanges around as well (although you have to take the seed as you find it since some people are better at this than others). I got my pops to buy me membership of the Heritage Seed Library this year (£16), and between the six packets I requested from the library and the ten I asked seed exchangers for, I reckon I saved about £30 off my seed bill this year. Oh, and saved seed can be more vigorous than purchased, because it's been handled more gently. Try parsnip if you don't believe me. Ten-day germination with a 75% germination rate, anyone?

Finally, some plants can be grown from seed taken from produce bought at market. During the last two years I've had butternut squash, chilli and tomato plants this way, and they all did fine. Admittedly the squash hadn't seeded "true" but it was still good to eat and stored well.

Any more suggestions, folks? I read that potatoes kept for replanting next year puts you at increased risk of virus attack... any truth to this?

[Shirley]

Hi

I think the collective purchasing is a great idea - one that can be used from all sorts from seeds to oil ! Perhaps this is something that SSish could organise? I know that of course there will be individual postage to charge for but even with this it should be a cheaper method.

You can also swap your seed with your fellow selfsufficientishers - just post your offer/want in the relevant folder.

I'll be harvesting my seed this year - so long as it all grows in the first place

The other alternative to collective purchasing is to get together with some local friends and decide that you will all grow different types of veg and swap/share/barter with each other - after all, most people have excess produce and this way you can decide between you what to plant according to individual garden/lottie conditions.

[ina]

I'm hoping to have quite a few excess plants this year - although I'm restricting myself to only using half the seed packet contents- because my friend who lives just down the road has very little time for the garden just now, so I'm growing seedlings for her, too... We've always swapped some seeds and seedlings in the past, anyway, but it was mostly her who was more organised than me, so I'm hoping to "pay back" some of that this time round.
And I think the list I made (spreadsheet) will help to keep me right and prevent me going wild, buying seeds unnecessarily. So far, I've not kept them in the fridge, because my house is a bit like a huge walk-in-fridge anyway... But maybe I will this summer.
Thanks for that tip with the parsnips and only two years good germination - I've got some old parsnip seeds.

[Millymollymandy]

Well I spent €60 on seed last year, but I only need to spend about €10 this year, and I expect some of the first lot of seeds to last for several more years. So it will average, I hope, at about €20 - 25 a year (plus seed potatoes and onion sets on top). If I don't have to spend a fortune on watering like last year then it will be a lot cheaper than buying the veg from a supermarket!

[hedgewizard]

There are a few ways you could save on the onion sets. You could consider growing from seed, which I'm told can be tricky but the onions are more bolt-hardy so the pressure to water is lesser. You could consider some perennial "multiplier onions", or you could grow shallots instead because you can keep a few heads back to split and plant the following year.

[gunners71uk]

help this seed saving is confusing some manufacturers of seed say dont save it as it wont be good, but the old boys on the allotment save their runnerbean seed every year,i didnt think you could use seed cos of hybrid whaaaaaaaaaa its to above me head.can you explain what seed you can save etc pls

[hedgewizard]

Dead easy. If it says "f1" on the packet, then it's an engineered cross that is sterile. You can save all the seed you like, but it won't grow*. Other than that, knock yourself out! Seed producers would say not to save seed, wouldn't they - because if everybody saved and exchanged seed for free they'd be out of business, and that'd be a bad thing because they're always tinkering around trying to make things better. Or at least different. God forbid the world should be run by a bunch of well-meaning amateurs... I mean, look at the Isle Of Man!

Seriously, you may find that some saved seed acts peculiar when you grow it, as with my squash - but with anything open-pollinated there's always a risk of pollination from somewhere else. All part of the fun (the plant equivalent of having a child that looks suspiciously like the milkman) and that's why you have to grub out anything that looks really strange - a process called "rogueing" - but for heaven's sake, don't get panicked. Start small - runner beans are easy-peasy provided you're only growing one variety - and if you find it worthwhile do a bit of reading and widen your horizons. Have fun!

*This turns out to be wrong - see below!

[ina]

It should say on your packet whether they are hydrids or not - in that case you can still keep them, but the results might not be what you expect.

[Muddypause]

I thought F1 seeds would grow, but would revert to one parent or the other, so would not be the same as the plant you took them from. Not that I've ever tried. What does F1 stand for, anyway? And the 'VF' on my Roma toms?

[FluffyMuppet]

F1 stands for "first filial". The seeds are all the result of a cross between two pure bred parents. The seeds are more expensive because of the work involved in keeping the parent lines breeding true.

[hedgewizard]

Really? I did try to grow seed saved from an f1 pumpkin but there was no germination at all. Let's have a read... ah. Genetic variability of f1 seeds gives some pretty strange results, including reduced viability so that could be what happened there. Mind you, that butternut squash seed from a fruit bought at market grew (although they were green and veiny). I guess I got lucky the second time! Wouldn't have kept the seeds from those though...

In short, although some flower-growers like the fun of it, it's not a good idea if you're relying on the seed to feed your family.