That's a very good point, JohnBoy. The way I see it, though, old seed is self-selecting, with the most vital and vigorous emerging. For sure, though, you've got to do a bit of screening of the resulting seedlings, which is always good practice — anything that's a bit wan or off-colour should go stra...

I gave up on growbags years ago, mostly because it is so difficult to water them. For sure, they work well if you've got a nice little drip system rigged up for them, much like the commercial growers use (after all, growbags were developed for commercial production) but that fiddling little gap in t...

What you've got to watch with seeds is how old they are to start with. That is, it's quite possible to buy seeds which are already several years old. Before they are packeted, by law seeds are germination tested and if they are within their defined viability (which differs according to crop) they ca...

Does anyone have a mature Walking Stick Cabbage growing in their garden? I'm looking for a fully grown one to photograph, rather than seedlings (which I have coming on). If you're in the Devon area, so much the better.

I gave up buying anything from Thompson & Morgan many years ago. Wrong seeds in the packet, empty seed packets, poor or non-existent germination have been some of their transgressions. They're not cheap, either. I think these days they act as agents for other nurseries to do their supplying, so ...