Tuesday 15 November 2016

T&M All Season Sprouts and Cabbages


It's that time of the year when I'm going through my seed boxes and sorting out what I'm going to grow and where and how many, especially as I now have two allotments to contend with.   

During the Wyevale 50p Seed Sale I picked up a pack of the Thompson & Morgan All Season Brussels Sprouts and All Season Cabbages multipacks. I thought what a great concept, three different varieties that take different amounts of time to grow and it can extend the cropping over 18 weeks for the cabbages & 26 weeks for the sprouts.

As we all know a Sprout like a pet isn't just for Christmas

The normal retail price for these packs of seeds is £3.99 a pack and you get an average of 30 seeds in the sprouts so that 10 seeds of each and 35 seeds in the Cabbages so that's, Ummm hang on, not divisible by three? So 12 & 12 and 11 maybe for some reason? Why would anyone do that surely it should say average of 36 seeds and have 12 in each pack? 



The seed outer packs are huge the measure 130mm deep and 180mm wide, and have two slots to hang them up with. This size super pack don't fit in well with all my other seeds and in my two plastic seed boxes, so I opened the packs to retrieve what I logically thought would be three packs of seeds inside, obviously one for each variety. 

Nope what you get is a single pack containing all three varieties!

Now don't get me wrong but what a great concept completely ruined by the final execution. As a gardener I like to know what I'm growing where, Am I likely to actually grow 30 - 36 cabbages even with two allotments? Highly unlikely. 

Not wanting to sound like a racial slur against cabbages but they all look the same when they are young, how the !"£%^&% hell am I suppose to know the difference between a Sir, Attraction and Minicole? The photo on the front is less than helpful as the Attraction is all chopped up.

The Sprouts are exactly the same a single pack of seeds inside the huge outer packaging, and they are just a load of balls and look even more alike especially once off the plant.  

So come on Thompson & Morgan if you are going to do this kind of thing at least put the seeds in three separate small bags, so we know what we are sowing and growing. I expect you sell these varieties on their own as well as in a multipack.

UPDATE

T&M have acknowledged my post see their reply and the conversation here . It appears that they don't think that mixing the tree seeds and providing in a single pack is a barmy idea, they really expect you to grow all 30 or 35 plants on your allotment.


What do you think? Let me know in the comments below



6 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Nope it was just the seasonal Wyevale 50p sale, I would have been more gutted of I had paid full price.

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  2. I would guess that they just use up the seeds this way and there is no guarantee it includes all varieties . Someone obviously doesn't know how veg gardeners operate and that it isn't like sowing a mixed pack of annuals flowers. I'd send off ab email to put them straight.

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    1. After reading your comment and seeing that someone had tagged in Thompson & Morgan on a Facebook link to the posting. I posted a link to this blog on their Facebook page, I guess they have a posting vetting system as it has not shown up immediately, lets hope someone in their marketing department there sees it and has a Eureka moment and they change the internal packing for the future.

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  3. I know it's really not helpful of me, but it did make me laugh a lot. Do you think they were sniggering in the packing dept of T&M? 'this'll really mess with their heads/crop covers..'

    Bonkers idea though!

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    1. It's a great idea just poorly executed by someone who has not got a clue how allotment owners or people use the products they are flogging, I actually bought two of each pack as they were viable until 2018

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