Seeds 50p a packet at The Garden Centre Group / Wyevale

To have a chance of planting out in Year 1 sow early (January), otherwise sow with normal spring seeds and raise in pots in Year 1 (you'll probably get it up to a 2L pot by Autumn) and then plant out Spring Year 2 (which will avoid a small, Autumn planted, plant being savaged by slugs)

I give mine 2 weeks cold treatment (put the seed tray/pot in the fridge), but I see many places saying that's not necessary. If you have loads of seed perhaps don't bother, if you only have a little then it may improve germination.

Cover with a plastic bag/transparent lid until germination, then open for a day or two then remove. Be careful with watering, the seedlings are prone to rot.

Watch out for slugs when the plants are small - even in mid summer they might be attacked by slugs (even in your greenhouse etc!)

If they are not a decent size by July I would not plant-out later than that.

 

Thank you, I'll sow some in January then. So they will germinate in the fridge? Or fridge for 2 weeks then a heated propagator?

 

They need to be moist in the fridge (either sow in seed tray/pot and put that in the fridge, or put them in a plastic (e.g. zip-lock) bag with a little moist compost or vermiculite, and then sow the compost+seed mix onto a tray/pot when it comes out. Just storing the seed packet in the fridge [i.e. "dry"] is not enough to break the Winter dormancy

 

Called in at my local today and they had the 50p sale on ... they also had the 50 PERCENT sign out still, and maybe that is what I saw yesterday ... so they may even have started yesterday like the rest. There was a bloke there with a wire shopping basket FULL of seed packets ... that's a BIG allotment he's got, or a busy eBay/Car-boot stall

No one had bought any chives

 

Just been in Groves, still full price there. Had a look at the veg stand, £1.99 for 6 leek plants

That works out about 33p per leek, surely you could get a full grown one for that?

 

I went to the blooms one near Rugby and they were 50p all out in baskets mixed up. Went for dahlia bishops children and gave an audible "yesssss" when I found one right at the bottom. (Much to the bemusement of other shoppers)
Just don't tell the other half about the various other 19 packets I bought...

 

Mine had them all still on the racks (as they did last year, but not previous years) which I expect will remain until the new season seeds arrive, or they want the space for something else.

Might be worth suggesting to the local manager for next year? Mine juts count the packets and put the relevant code into the till (I think they have a crib-sheet with a barcode on it). They used to X-out the barcode with a heavy black marker [what a lot of work that was!], but they don't bother with that any more

 

Just got a Gardening Club mailing with a £5 off £25 spend voucher that would get 50 packets of seeds down to 40p each.