New Seeds from Dobies

 

This was the contents of my first order and envelope from Dobies, and yes, the pack of Suttons Amsterdam Forcing 3 carrot seed tape did come from Dobies, see more on that later below.   

I'm awaiting photographs from Dobies marketing department that will be added below once received. More about that below also.

 

411023 - Runner Bean Black Knight Seeds - 20 Seeds - £3.49

Your runner beans don’t have to be green! Runner Bean ‘Black Knight’ produces pods which start off green but mature to a purple black making them easy to spot and harvest. Attractive bright red flowers and juicy pods. Height: 3m (10'). Spread: 300mm (12").

411021 - Dwarf Bean Dior Seeds – 120 Seeds - £2.99

Well flavoured, crunch beans which are easy to spot due to their yellow colour that remains when cooked. Dwarf Bean 'Dior' is an RHS Award of Garden Merit winner, which forms compact, sturdy plants, reliably setting high yields of uniform pods about 130mm long. Height 450mm (18"). Spread 300mm (12"). 

Companion Planting: Try growing French beans with Nasturtiums to draw aphids away from your crop. 

411022 - Climbing Bean French Sunshine Seeds – 45 Seeds - £2.99

These sunshine yellow beans stand out beautifully against the foliage to make picking easy. Climbing Bean ‘French Sunshine’ is a reliable, disease-resistant variety from the same breeder as the excellent Climbing Bean ‘Cobra’. It produces generous crops of tender pods which reach up to 170 - 180mm long. The waxy, yellow pods are stringless and sweet flavoured and continue cropping over a long period. Height: 1.8m (70"). Spread: 300mm (12").

Growing these three varieties of beans in 2023 will give me a harvest period from early June to the end of October. The beans should be easy to spot and harvest and my eldest daughter's preference for French beans rather than runner beans has been catered for. 

With 120 Dwarf Bean 'Dior' Seeds I will be sharing the love with my plot neighbours and providing them with some bean seeds to also trial in 2023. 

411026 - Spinach Santa Cruz F1 Seeds - 500 Seeds Approx. - £2.49

A slow-to-bolt variety that shows great resistance to downy mildew. Highly versatile, spinach 'Santa Cruz' F1 can be harvested either as baby leaf or allowed to develop into mature leaves. The dark green leaves are rounded in shape with short, very tender stems. Height and spread: 200mm (8in).

411036 - Carrot Volcano F1 (Late Maincrop) Seeds - 300 Seeds - £2.49

Carrot 'Volcano' is a sturdy and vigorous variety, popular with commercial growers. This Nantes type carrot produces strong, 8–9-inch tapered roots with exceptional resistance to braking and splitting and the crown of vigorous foliage making them easy to lift. High resistance to cavity spot, crown disease and late season re-growth. height 300mm (12") Spread 150mm (6") 

186324 - Seed Tape - Carrot 'Amsterdam Forcing 3' - 6m seed tape - £2.99

A quick maturing variety, Carrot 'Amsterdam Forcing 3' is ideal for growing early crops under cloches or cold frames. The high quality, small cylindrical roots can be harvested at finger size for deep orange-red carrots with a sweet flavour and virtually no core. For an ongoing supply, sow these fast growing carrots at 14 day intervals through spring and early summer. Height: 300mm (12"). Spread: 150mm (6").

OK, if you are not in on the open secret that various companies that appear to be isolated are in fact part of a larger group who was taken over by another well-known company in 2020, you may be a little surprised when Suttons seeds arrive from Dobies! 

What was more worrying for me was that the extended forcing or over winter growing is not mentioned on the back of the Suttons pack of seeds and the sowing and harvesting charts are completely different. Now that not to say you can't do both and the reason, I selected these in the first place was because it appears you can over winter them. 

No mention of over wintering on the Suttons web site and the same diagram on the web site as the back of the pack. 

To give you an idea who may have bought the group up at the moment the Dobies web page for the Amsterdam Forcing 3 carrots gives a huge clue 

But it's all OK because when you click on the link you get ....

Or perhaps even a page on another member of the group that should not have been linked too in the first place! 

Just guess work, but when you take over companies and decide you are going to have the same web designers build your four separate web sites that make up the group, make sure they have their brains in gear when they are building and editing pages.

I have notified Dobies marketing department so they can get their web people to remove or fix the link, if they are less worried about maintaining the illusion these days.

These days another huge indicator that you can buy the same product from another member of the group is when you see the Branded Garden Products Ltd watermark in the bottom left corner of the image. 

 

Clearly the image has come from another member of the group and when you look at the Suttons page, there is no watermark at the moment.

I did write to the marketing department re watermarks and the open secret and here was the reply 

I’ve contacted our imaging rights team regarding your query. 

All images on any of our websites should have a watermark, either BGP or the brand, some don’t as they were already added before this rule was introduced a few years ago, but eventually all images will have a watermark, this is to prevent people copying images directly from our websites and using them without permission! Any images needed must be requested, and the hi-res image without watermark will be sent if the license/permissions allow this use.

The copyright line underneath some images is to credit the library/photographer/company where needed.

For this image, it can only be used to promote the product for the brand, and in small print the copyright of the image supplier ‘Rob Smith Allotment’ should be added. This would then cover whoever is using the image, and the library can see it has been supplied to them from us, so they are covered under the license agreement we have, rather than said person being charged for that image.

Hope that explains why, as a business, we add watermarking and copyright to images. A lot of work was done a few years ago to ensure images are used correctly with the correct copyright added where it was needed.

That's why I'm awaiting photographs from Dobies marketing department that will be added to this posting once received. I want to make sure I have permission to share images and can't just harvest from the appropriate web site as was previously allowed by their previous marketing team, when trialing and blogging about their products.