Anyone Buying New Seed ?

Thank you so, so much @shiney for all the wonderfully detailed advice and information. With this amount of guidance we should have runner beans coming out of our ears, hopefully. Thank you again for taking so much of your time to reply, it is greatly appreciated, now I just have to follow it to the letter
Kind regards
Tink

 

Thank you, will do have a good day.

 

Well, all ready for 2025 !
My order from Realseeds was placed yesterday with confirmation at 15.04pm of payment
Confirmation of packing/despatch at 15.35
Delivery today at 11.40am by Royal Mail,
Thats 250 miles in 20 hours
12.5 mph
Amazing -as its 20mph in Wales
100% service 100% in stock

 

I just received these, i ordered 2 packs of cosmos and marigolds

 

I must start putting in orders soon. I need my old faithfuls Cosmos, Candytuft and Sweet Peas (struggling to decide which variety!), and then I want to try something new like Zinnias. I've got plenty of packets of "free" magazine seeds saved up (the magazine being free with my bank account - a packet of seeds accompanies it each time)

 

We don't order seeds online but do buy them in situ especially when they reduce the prices and the sow before date is still at least 1 year if not 2. I know many of you will tell us that the seeds will not be so viable but until this year we have never had issues with germination.

 

@Logan, cosmos are one of our favourites and we tried a variety very similar to Sweet kisses last year. One grew enormous but was beautiful with multiple flower heads, bobbing around in the breeze. here it is….

 

They look nice @Songbird forgot to say that they were offering free p and p for the Christmas bank holiday, to find out have to receive emails.

 

Hope your seeds are successful this year, @Logan including all the other seeds. I can’t wait to start sowing some seeds again. Where anything will go is another matter, but I do enjoy the feelings one gets when those first few seeds start germinating. Enjoy.

 

I learned over the years that sowing seeds can be tricky and I got less and less a positive result. Most of the seeds that I had ordered last year didn't germinate. It was extremely sad to have spent so much effort (money £40 for the seeds, later on also £20 into soil and time) into it with no result.
What has always worked were wildflower seeds. I collected them last year from my bed, and I got a bag of wildflower field seeds like clover and corn marigold from the farm shop in October.
I will sow them in March, when the sun naturally reaches the greenhouse and the raised beds. I want to use both raised beds for wildflowers.
I have made very good experiences with the plants sold by the farm shop in Cirencester and decided last year that I will buy plants from them. Their Zinnia plants were so strong and cost just £2 each. Since my garden is tiny, I prefer to spend £10 in plants from them. I'm sure that not all Foxgloves that I planted will survive and there will be empty spaces in the bed for new plants. The good thing is that the farm shop takes back the pots.

 

I've just ordered an embarrassing amount from Plant World Seeds (it would have been more, but I went through and nearly halved it). As I'm no longer a member of Alpine Garden Society, I miss the buzz of getting the package of seeds in January. It was fun seeing which of my first choices arrived, and which second choices that I was less keen to grow.