[Jade Storm]

My brother works at a greenhouse so I may be buying plants from his workplace this year: like the tomatoes and peppers. I'll plant some of my own but for sure, but the majority I might just buy. Plus I can get his discount! He also said that I could leave some of my plants in the greenhouse where he works and pick them up later. We're hoping we can get one of the old greenhouses they're not using anymore. His boss said he could have it; it's just a matter of moving it. The idea of it makes me giddy.

I got to sit down and see which plants can go right into the ground and which need the greenhouse. I was browsing through seeds yesterday. I think I'm going to end up overbuying, but I'll just plant the extras in the next growing season.

I'm sort of considering a business opportunity now of growing veggies and saving all the seeds and trying to sell them. LOL

[juvenal]

They send non-pictorial seed packs out with just basic growing instructions, but the prices are good and you get a decent amount of seeds.  Quite a lot of packs are around the £1 mark or under.

Plain packets are a step in the right direction, but won't deter the real seedaholic. Packets illustrating dead/dying/blighted or pigeon-ravaged portraits of the matured seed within might just do it - like cigarette packets are now.

Seems drastic, but addicts must be saved from themselves...

[New shoot]

Packets illustrating dead/dying/blighted or pigeon-ravaged portraits of the matured seed within might just do it

...or push you into a panic of buying back-up seeds in case the first lot die/wither/get eaten ...  just saying like 

[Ema]

I've been trying to support my local nurseries, I got all my seeds out at the weekend and put them on the dining table. I've got 2 packets of Uchiki Kuri Squash and 4 packets of beetroot to add to the 2 half packets left from this year 

I never have enough time or space for all the veg I would love to grow and always have more seed packets than I should...

[juvenal]

I got all my seeds out at the weekend and put them on the dining table. I've got 2 packets of Uchiki Kuri Squash and 4 packets of beetroot to add to the 2 half packets left from this year 

I never have enough time or space for all the veg I would love to grow and always have more seed packets than I should...

Am I looking here at someone who has taken the first small step on the road to recovery?

Acknowledging the problem; the addiction. Facing up to it ... confessing to the forum.

Now open those beetroot packets. Empty them into a pile, and count the seeds.

Imagine those seven hundred and forty eight beetroot plants, each six inches from the other, in serried rows, stretching to the horizon.

"But I'm not going to sow them all!", you cry.

Then why did you buy them?

Because of the catalogue pictures..

Those ruby-red, perfectly circular, flawless beetroot sirens!

Get Thee Behind Me, Boltardy!

Calculate how many beetroot you actually eat over summer. About thirty ...

It's not going to be easy, but bin those surplus packets!

Remember last year? The horror of your neighbours, as you trooped up their paths yet again, arms full of beetroot and courgettes.*

" Mum! It's the beetroot woman again!" " Pretend we're not in..kids, get behind the sofa!"

You've taken the first vital step.

Don't weaken now.

* See my recent SAA article: Excess Courgettes - The Modern Plague

[al78]

I had  D T Browns seed catalogue through the door yesterday now the question is am i going to order anymore seed ?

Same here and it did stimulate me to replace most of my old seed. I will have tons to sow come March.

[mumofstig]

Well....as I ordered some more seed potatoes, I had to order some more 30L pots and some more compost 

Will power went completely out of the window, didn't it? 

[New shoot]

Oh I think you can be forgiven 

I reckon growing a bit extra this year is a good plan.  Planting and growing have huge potential as mood lifters, you get to eat the results and it is fresh air and exercise as well.  Neighbours who previously shunned beetroot and courgettes may be a bit more enthusiastic at the moment.  I certainly had no trouble at all offloading anything last summer.

I even got waylaid at the allotment gates by interested parties  a few times and went back in to pick more chard, or rhubarb or whatever for people who were over the moon to be offered a gift 

Despite the dire warnings on this thread, I think a bit of controlled indulgence in seeds (or seed spuds) is OK