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Excessive cost of seeds
Chris 7
Posts: 102
I bought a packet of Unwins 'Shirley' tomatoes.
I paid £3.99 for 12 seeds, as the packet stated.
It seems to me that such a price is excessive, and I'd say that the profits made by many seed manufacturers seem a tad excessive !
Any comments anybody ?
Chris
0
Posts
Are these specialist tomatoes? Where were you buying them from? I've found prices seem to vary greatly depending on whether its a garden centre, Wilkinsons, a tat centre that has a few plants in...
Ebay is cheaper for seeds
No ... bog standard F1 Hybrids ... bought from a big Garden Centre.
I'll try EBay then, but I am a bit of a Luddite !
£1.39 per pack here http://www.seedparade.co.uk/products/Tomato_Shirley_F1_5_seeds-88-1.html?gclid=CKC_y6PAj70CFasEwwodp5YA4Q although it doesn't say how many seeds the pack contains and the company certainly doesn't have any sort of quality reputation as far as I'm aware.
I think we have to remember that many of the larger companies invest a lot of money on the development of new varieties etc, rather than just growing and selling seeds - they have to cover that investment.
They also produce and sell a wide variety of seeds, some of which may not be as popular as others and therefore may not recoup their costs, so in order to maintain a wide choice for the grower they spread this across their whole range.
I hold no brief for seed companies, but I feel that to label a company as profiteering without evidence of their costs might be a little naive.
There's much more to producing seeds on the scale done by the large companies than growing some tomatoes and saving and packaging the seeds - some varieties are licensed and fees have to be paid, and quality control measures also cost money.
How's the damp problem in your shed Chris?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Oh yes, silly me Doh! But the rest of what I said still holds good in my opinion.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I tend to take the view that 12 seeds may produce 12 plants and that will be considerably cheaper than 12 tomato plants and you have the fun of growing them.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
I don't understand why you bought the seeds if you thought the price was excessive. Where are you obtaining the information which leads you to believe the seed manufacturers' profits are excessive?
I tend to look at the price of an item and either decide it's what I want at a price I'm willing to pay or not. Some plants are dearer than others, generally down either to rarity or the difficulty / time taken to raise them to saleable size. I imagine the same applies to seed.
Go for bog-standard and leave out the F1
Gardeners Delight, even T&M are only charging £1.99 so you'll get them for less than that.
Good tom been around for years
In the sticks near Peterborough
Pound shops
vegetableseeds.net are excellent - many seeds under £1, great variety, 10% off for allotment holders...when you buy seeds from them, they email you full growing instructions and follow-up tips. The best.