Excess plants from sowing

[KarenParticipant]

I am curious to know what do everyone do with their excess plants from their sowings.

1) compost heap?
2) giving them away?
3) find every possible space or alternative options to grow them to maturity?
4) selling them?

[HawfinchParticipant]

Hi Karen,

I give as many as possible away, the rest I ruthlessly rip out and put on the compost, otherwise I’ll have endless plants to nurse through the season thinking “well you never know”.

Helle

[Don FoleyParticipant]

Hi Karen,

I follow Helle’s example but I have also on occasion planted the odd spare Leek or Lettuce in the herbaceous border.

Don.

[TesiParticipant]

Some I give away as presents or use as a swap, some I plant wherever there is space in the garden.

[RhysParticipant]

Karen

Each year I have cut back a little on the excess plants I sow as I get more confident that I will have sufficient quality to transplant out/put into final pots. But I give a few tomato plants to neighbours, the local church fetes etc. If it’s just extra modules in a tray, they tend to just end up ditched on the paths between my beds/where I have dug up a little soil to add to new compost piles.

Right now, I pick three tomato seedlings if I want two final plants (I give away the extra one once plants are successfully transplanted into 15cm pots), two if I want one. Chard I pick 12 to transplant out 10. Lettuces the same.

[LeifParticipant]

I’ve given away a couple of chilli plants. I have tried to cut back on the number of plants I grow, as space is limited. I usually give a way a couple of courgette plants, I germinate too many to allow for failures, which never happens. No doubt it will when I only plant enough!

[KarenParticipant]

Thanks everyone from your replies…. keep them coming. 🙂

Think I am in big trouble. I just finished pricking out my tiny seedlings over the last 3 days….I have over 450 basil seedlings now (of about 8-9 varieities)!

I too usually give away my plants to friends and neighbours and family. Think it will be next to impossible to give away over 400 basil plants.

My other problem apart from being afraid of the seeds not germinating, I tend to sow rather excessively, hence THE outcome. I also cannot bear and bring myself to discard any seedlings to the compost heap. And hence, THE outcome.

This is absolutely insane. Morever, some of my basil seeds were bought in 2013-2014. Figured that their germination rate wouldn’t be too good.

[bluebellParticipant]

Karen I have one word for you – PESTO! Seriously with that quantity a local restaurant may be interested.

Have to say I find it very tempting to sow the whole packet of far too many things!!

[KarenParticipant]

hey bluebell,

haha! grrrreat idea! Only problem is that there isn’t any Italian restaurant anywhere near us. We have mostly German restaurants everywhere unfortunately.

We might try to sell the plants at the souvenir shop of our seasonal German restaurant. It would be mighty hard to serve Italian dishes at our restaurant as the visitors traffic is way too fast and our menu is specially created for our regions´s specialty.

Will try to give as many away and try to sell the rest. Fingers crossed! And, most importantly, drastic cut down on sowings next year!

[HawfinchParticipant]

Hi Karen,

I actually have loads of basil plants as well, not quite as many as yours, only around 30 😉 – but we do grow them for pesto as we’re great pesto fans.

[KarenParticipant]

Hey Rhys,

keyword is cut back… which is sometimes hard to do for fear of poor germination rate… haha!

My husband has always reminded that me I have been really successful over the past 4 years with my seed germination… lol

Hawfinch, I am not really a big fan of pesto as I find it toooo oily and also not a huge fan of cheese and also due to lactose intolerant. Will attempt to make some for the husband as he is a big fan of olive oil. 🙂

[RhysParticipant]

Karen

Try germinating 8 – 10 tomato seeds if you want 2 plants in the end. Chances are you’ll germinate 7 – 9 and 10 if you made them yourself and they are really good. If the seeds are expensive, I only germinate 4 nowadays.

The cost of germinating extra seeds is pretty small in terms of time, compost and seeds. But things get more time consuming if you actually prick out a lot of them.

Of course, if you are doing a breeding programme you will do something like that because you need to select out the best 1 – 5% each year.

I guess it depends on whether you are running a farm, an allotment or a small market garden business.

[KarenParticipant]

Hey Rhys,

The adage is to mostly grow food for our own personal consumption and what we love to eat and hard to get or expensive to buy and best to eat really fresh, e.g. green asparagus for sure and salads etc.

The next priority is to grow what the husband needs often for our seasonal restaurant, e.g. parsley, chives, spring onions, dill, salads, cucumbers, courgettes, pumpkins. He uses a lot of potatoes and onions too but it wouldn’t really be economical or feasible to grow the amounts he needs as it would be a lot cheaper to buy them.

My other weakness is variety. The tomato varieties here are very limited, hence I usually order my tom seeds from the UK. And I love to share what I discover, e.g. sungold toms to friends and neighbours and acquaintances. Hence, I tend to sow “extra” seeds. ha! The only tomato variety on the lips of people here is Harzfeuer! Our dentist loves the tom variety Vintage Wine that is also hard to find here.

Would you believe that there is no sungold tom seeds in the garden stores or German internet websites, except for only 1? Plus seeds are somewhat cheaper from the UK, well particularly Amazon UK.

And my recent eye-opening experience to over 20 varieties of lettuces and types of greens to be added to salads and other types of vegs, e.g. parsnips.

I am definitely losing my battle here with wanting to grow so many different variety of vegetable and their varieties too. 🙁

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