Gardening centre plants

Unless you have a massive family there is no need for 30 kale plants. Give some plants to friends and use the room for something else!

Totty

Both my son and myself work in g c different ones and to be honest people amaze me a strip of six carrot plants £1.29 . one chap came in saying he wanted to grow a few veg well four packets of seeds and two hundred pounds later on every thing from pots to mini green houses  we started selling tomato plants 1st week of march and they sold out my son came home with some runner beans that some had a touch of frost destined for the skip . they had 8 beans in a 3ins pot Been sown to layers deep and virtualy immpossible to separate .

See that's the thing about having a loty, you have to try and think what you want/need way in advance, and then if you decide you want X and its too late to seed or plant, then its the supermarket! being this is my first year, I dont know how much I need, its a total guess as to how much I want and need and then plant out, but im sure I will know better next year!

I work in a garden centre and that's exactly why I sometimes pick up veg plants from work Dopey.  I've been growing veg for ages and sow a lot from seed, but sometimes you miscalculate and just need a few lettuce 

People have all sorts of reasons for buying them.  Some of my customers are elderly and have arthritic hands that make seeds fiddly, or live alone or just want a few bits in pots to pick.  Others have trouble with some seeds and like the reassurance of buying a plant - cucumbers go like hot cakes when they come in as they are past the sucicidal seedling stage or if they do die, I'll replace them. 

Baby plants are also good for teaching impatient small folk about veg growing as they need to see some green immediately.  Parents often tell me that they have cracked the 'getting them to eat their veg problems' with a few pots of homegrown stuff the kids have tended themselves.

If you buy from a DIY shed, then you won't get much help, but in a decent garden centre there will be signs warning what is frost tender and hopefully people on hand to talk you through what to do    Must admit I don't understand the mania for runner beans in April either, but I think most of the rest is a valid product if it suits your needs 

I don't think anyone on here is rubbishing those who buy in plants.  I always have to resort to buying red cabbage plants as my seed-sown ones get eaten or otherwise die!

The main issue is with those garden centres which sell frost tender plants so early - and without associated warnings - that anyone putting them outside on purchase is doomed to failure.

I don't think anyone on here is rubbishing those who buy in plants.  I always have to resort to buying red cabbage plants as my seed-sown ones get eaten or otherwise die!

The main issue is with those garden centres which sell frost tender plants so early - and without associated warnings - that anyone putting them outside on purchase is doomed to failure.

Exactly Yorkie!

Don't know who, if anyone, actually started selling tender plants so early, but of course no GC can afford to be left behind so they're all at it now! 

I suspect that many of the people most likely to buy ready-grown plants are also likely to be those least likely to know how to look after them.) 

It certainly means a more consistent level of water and as you say less watering. I was bit dubious to start with as the actual cell is so small, but they work a treat.

I am going to try to work out a way with both mini plugs and the nine hole size modules, which wold be useful for sowing squashes into

Quote from: richrua on April 19, 2012, 23:21

I have a terrible, terrible addiction and affliction to buying young veg plants that I dont need.

for example: I have 10 or so kale plants growing from seed at home.......... so i notice a strip with about ten more in it.... oooo a bargain at £2 I decide..........................but who needs 20 kale plants. man i am an idiot

Oops ...I've got about 15 Curly Kale and about the same Cavolo Nero just planted.
I didn't realise this would be too many!  Ah well I do like it.

I hope so... they will be with you for quite a while