Kitchen Garden Forum

With the seed catalogues dropping through my letterbox daily, it never ceases to amaze me that there are so many varieties to choose from. Beans, in particular, seem to cover a massive range, as do potatoes from the likes of Tuckers. However, who buys these massive ranges of seeds? Probably, like most of you, I stick to a hard core of preferred varieties and experiment with a few new ones each year. But it seems impossible to believe that so many of you out there are growing all the varieities in such numbers that the seed companies can keep them in their catologues. Furthermore, the supermarkets aren't selling them, so commmercial growers are buying them either! Look at the vast number of beans of various sorts that are available. I grow a couple of varieties of runners, one climbing French bean and one dwarf variety. I couldn't eat more than that, nor store a great deal more. So how on earth do so many varieties survive in commecial catologues aimed squarely at us amateurs?

Hi Barry,
You can be assured that if a seed doesn't sell then it may last a couple of years in Home Garden Catalogues and no longer. If you have a Commercial Catalogue aimed at Professional Growers they still have quite a range of seeds within a particular vegetable. Moles's Catalogue lists 27 different Carrots 18 Leeks and 59 Lettuces and countless Brassicas. They do not sell Potatoes as these are mainly sold by local Agricultural Merchants who will sell varieties that have proved to be best for the area that you live in. The large Potato Contractors in this area produce their own seed which is produced above 1000ft which means that most of the pests and diseases do not occur at this height.
D T Brown used to publish the most grown seeds each year and year after year Tomato Gardeners Delight and Beetroot Boltardy appeared along with many old favourites.
With Beans many varieties are sown for Pulses and not for immediate consumption especially with the French Climbers and Dwarf varieties so this is one reason why there are so many.
One other, but very important, factor is that there are several very large seed producers and they are all producing seeds which may be similar and the Seed Houses include a selection on most things that are offered by the seed producers.
JB.

I only wish that you were right when it comes to many cultivars, I have a great difficulty for instance finding enough celerys to choose from and with favourites being withdrawn almost as soon as I have trialled them it's like the computer game of Froglet with one stepping across the river on the logs and tortoises.
Time was when I had a huge box of seeds from Dobies, now they will be lucky to get any order at all from me whereas Moles seeds, inheritors of DT Brown commercial take some 90% of my order.
Allan