Where Do We Get Our Seeds From?

It is that time of year again and if you are someone who starts your plants from seed you'll probably be starting or have already started getting them in pots and on windowsills or in greenhouses. There are so many different seeds and varieties out there for each and every plant and it can often be overwhelming or confusing as to which ones to get.

Neither of us is picky about where we get our seeds from - some people will buy their seeds only from certain places because they know they're good, they know they germinate and grow well and that is absolutely fine. We both have a few places that we get our seeds from but they're not set in stone and quite often if we're out and about and spot some seeds for sale then more often than not we will come home with them.

In previous years, we have grown some things from seeds and then later in the year bought the rest as already started plants from our local Millhouse Nursey which is really the only place we buy plants from for our allotments.

However, this year we are trying to grow a good 95% of what we want to grow from seed and are having a pretty good success rate. We will still buy some plants later on but it is much more economical to grow from seed if you have the time and space to do it.

So, where did we get all our seeds this year?! Well to start with, we both figured out what we wanted to grow and went through our seeds boxes to see what we had from the previous growing season that we could still use this year.

I believe the first "seeds" we added to our collection this year actually came from Wilko surprisingly enough. We used them last year for our onion, shallot and garlic starts and both decided to do it again this year as we had great success last year. If you want to see Katie getting these into the ground, our first allotment video of 2022 is now live on Youtube.

We did also get a few other seeds from Wilko as well as they were such a good deal and we ended up ordering a big load online. We also went back to our tried and trusted Thompson & Morgan who we've both had great success with. The good thing about them is that they also run amazing deals and sales throughout the year so you can usually get a lot of seeds for your money.

Katie also wanted to try growing Tomatillos this year, which is a bit unusual for the UK and ended up ordering the seeds for these and a few others from Amazon. We weren't hugely hopeful that these were going to work or even be the right seeds, but if you check out the youtube video you'll be able to see how those are going at the moment.

We have also picked up a couple of random packets from supermarkets like Asda and Lidl as they have them for 50p a pack and so if they don't work it isn't a huge loss. Finally, the last place we picked up a few seed packs this year was from Suttons - we both have a bit of a seed problem and LOVE buying them and shouldn't really be allowed out together when there is a possibility we will run into seed packets because we actively encourage each other to buy more even if they are not needed, which is the case most of the time.

So, there you have it, that is where the seeds for our 2022 allotments have come from. We also harvested and saved seeds from some of our crops this year and another allotment close by was shutting down and we were able to go and save over 100 strawberry starts, we took the new shoots as opposed to the older plants, as well as some redcurrant and blackcurrant cuttings which are all doing really well and happily situated in their new homes.

Are you as excited as us about the growing season beginning?