I buy scores of packets of seeds every year and raise thousands of plants from them. In fact, the majority of plants grown at Longmeadow have been raised from seed. It is unquestionably the cheapest way of purchasing plants for your garden, and I want to encourage more and more gardeners – especially the younger generation – to raise plants from seeds as a hugely rewarding aspect of making a garden, even on the tightest budget. But over the past few years it has become noticeably more expensive.
This seems to manifest itself in two ways: the cost of each packet is increasing; or the number of seeds per packet is decreasing. In other words, each seed is costing more. While the ratio of price to seed varies from variety to variety, sometimes this reduction in seeds is farcical. It is not unusual now to buy a packet of tomato seeds to find, hidden in a fold at the bottom of the packet, barely 10 seeds. Earlier this spring I was sowing ammi seeds, and when I opened the packet and peered into its depths I could just make out the few tiny specks that made up the entirety of its contents. The packet itself was big, well designed and seductively attractive, and this seems to be becoming a trend – the fewer the seeds, the fancier the packet.
I do not blame the seed companies. I am sure that they are not benefiting from this trend. But the business reality is that if costs go up, either the price has to rise accordingly or the quantity of seeds goes down. Our climate does not allow a long enough summer season for plants to reliably grow and ripen, so a great deal of the seeds sold in this country are produced in the southern hemisphere or China, and most sold through vast wholesalers and then packaged here. Since Brexit, the costs and bureaucracy around importing seeds and plants have risen, and seems to still be wrapped up in chaos and delay, and all this adds to costs. Seeds also have a shelf life and yet have to be ordered way in advance, so there is inevitably wastage. I remember visiting a seed company in Torquay in the early 1990s and seeing a large skip filled with seed packets past their sell-by date. Again, this carries a cost that is passed on to the consumer.