B&T World Seeds

Has anyone used B&T World seeds. They claim to have 36,000 different seeds. http://www.b-and-t-world-seeds.com/letters.htm

 

Thanks for that PeterS, very useful.
I have been trying to find seeds of Ipomoea Batatas 'Blackie' but I think I will have to buy as a tuber as no-one seems to sell the seed.

 

No they don't have it. Its an awe inspiring list - but still it doesn't have everything. I spotted a few things missing as well.

 

I think it unrealistic to expect anyone to stock all the plant seeds that maybe available, and if they try they must end up with a lot of old seed of unknown viability.
I'd rather use a specialist, someone who targets what they intend to stock and sticks to it.
Having said that I do use chilterns who have a large range, but their germination can be a bit iffy.

 

I agree re Chiltern's seeds, but then germination in general seems a bit iffy. The seed I have saved myself from leeks and squashes comes up like a rocket, however.

The B&T site takes a bit of getting used and the pricing structure is not that easy to work out, I was worried about ending up ordering a kilo of begonia seed and having to bequeath it to my great-grandchildren.

 

Also Chilterns don't routinely give instructions.

 

From what I have read and from my own experience of seed failures, I suspect that a certain amount of the seed that you buy in packets is not viable. Certainly some seeds need special conditions or a long wait. But when Chris Lloyd said that on one occasion only one seed germinated from a half kilo of seed he bought - I suspect it is not all our fault.

 

All these firms are getting the seed from other suppliers, they just handle it. With more unusual things like some perennials there must be lots of different sources and I suspect some of it is quite old, particularly if it is non commercial species...and that applies just as much to the enormous seed companies as the little ones.
With vegetable seed and stuff like bedding plants I think they are probably produced by huge companies under very controlled conditions in places like Japan and California. There are regulations concerning viability and purity.
What annoys me is when the seed companies describe something as difficult to germinate when it isn't. Its just they are selling dead seed. One large company that produces a very colourful brochure routinely sells seed, for a high price, that is 100% dead. The species I am thinking about has seed that dies immediately it is dried out. It has to be sent out wrapped in tissue to prevent drying out, but of course a large multi national company cannot do that, but they want the colour picture in their catalogue.
Some campanies give out instructions on how to germinate and some people like that. Sometimes though the person writing the instructions has never germinated what they are writing about.

 

I agree with what Geoff has said. I think gardeners should take the power back into their own hands by saving & exchanging their own seed wherever possible. In most domestic situations home-saved seed would give just as good results as expensive F1 hybrid seed - farmers and gardeners in the third world have been surviving on it for generations after all!

Where seed is concerned gardeners have few buyer's rights in practice. Is there anybody here who has ever complained to the manufacturer about poor quality seed? I always assume that if they fail it must be my fault, or the weather's. I don't complain because it is hard to prove the seed was not viable in the first place.

I did complain once because a packet of tomato seed which claimed to contain an average of 20 seeds only contained 14. Most people wouldn't be bloody-minded enough to count them. But I am! I don't think I'd go through a packet of, say, 500 rocket seeds just to be certain i was getting full value for money!

 

Well I will buy F1 hybrid seed sometimes and can appreciate that that it is difficult to produce, but generally they do what they say.
However one firm describes the Himalayan blue poppy as difficult to germinate, when it isn't. So novice gardeners buy this seed. When it doesn't come up they think "it must be me, I am a rubbish gardener"
Himalayan blue poppy is easy to germinate, it germinates like cress. Its a pain to keep the seedlings alive, but easy to germinate. I have been growing and saving seed of several different types of blue poppy. Some years ago someone, who did not know my specialisms, bought me a packet of blue poppy seed from a big company with an overcoloured picture on the front.
With my experience I germinated 5 seeds and all five matured and flowered. Seed pans of home collected and exchanged seed, germinated alongside, produced so many seedlings that i threw away 90%.