Karen Platt’s blog

Searching for Seed

Few take the time these days to sow from seed, but it’s worth the effort for so many reasons. I started sowing from seed as a hobby many years ago. In fact my first introduction to seed sowing was at age 10, when I was shown how to grow greenhouse tomatoes.The first and foremost reason to grow from seed, has to be the enormous variety of seed lists. Although seed companies rarely advertise and most only know the big few, I made it my job in 1995 to search out all the interesting seed companies from around the world. So forget all those common or garden seed catalogues, there are myriads of companies listed in my book The Seed Search. The first edition came out in 1996 and since that time the book has been thoroughly updated 6 times. If I was the kind of person to submit my books for awards like many authors do, I’m sure it would have won an award. The feedback from delighted customers has been more than enough for me and object to paying to submit books as you do to win awards, it’s almost like you paid for the award itself. What matters is not some small committee fanfare but a genuine love of your work from people who don’t know you but adore your work.The reason I got so involved in seed again in 1995, was that I was searching for seeds of my beloved black plants.  I realised there was a gap in the market for a seed directory, one that told you who sold what exactly. It was a much tougher job than I imagined, with more seed companies than I ever thought. I searched seed companies all around the world for over 10 years. The latest edition (6th) has been done as an e-book only. I needed to cut down on this area of my work and decided this was the way to go and to include fewer, selected seed companies. If you prefer the older format, the 5th edition is still available. Since the book contains many seed suppliers (over 500 in the 5th edition) you are not reliant on just one catalogue and you can compare prices for many of the 40,000 seeds listed. The 5th edition is the last one to list seeds by species, the 6th lists them by genus only. This is the most comprehensive source and most up-to-date source of its kind. Even if you are not immediately sowing from seed, it’s worth looking at the tremendous variety of 400 lettuce, over 600 Eucalyptus. It’s a fascinating source book for any gardener. That brings me round to the next reason to sow from seed. You can obtain unusual and rare seeds for a fraction of the cost of a plant. Think of the fun of sowing and the satisfaction of saying, I grew that from seed. The books contains all kinds of seed from flowers to vegetables and cacti to trees. Organic and heirlooms abound and F1’s are listed two if you feel the need.Why not give it a try and sow something today?