The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Saturday
Shop, sow and grow: free seeds in your fridge
Covid has made made gardeners of us all – and created seed shortages. Sally Nex explains how supermarket produce can get you planting
It’s like déjà vu all over again. You’re raring to go, bursting with plans for the new season, the seed trays are lined up – then you go online to place your orders and it all grinds to a shuddering halt.
Seed companies are again struggling to cope. Pared-down staffing levels due to Covid make it doubly difficult to handle sky-high demand from furloughed gardeners, their ranks swelled by the three million new recruits from last spring’s lockdown. It hasn’t helped that garden centres in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are (at time of writing) closed, too.
Leading seed merchant Thompson & Morgan reports demand three times higher than last year, and Mr Fothergill’s is warning of longer-than-usual delivery times. Some, including Kings Seeds, Real Seeds and Pennards Plants, have had to temporarily close their websites to new orders.
But you don’t have to let spring pass you by while you press refresh on your browser. Just visit your local supermarket instead.
With a little inventiveness, you can plunder everyday groceries to stock your garden with vegetables, herbs, flowers and even houseplants: you’ll never look at your weekly shopping trolley in quite the same way again.