The Calm Seed Order: what to buy now for a UK allotment (and what can wait)

Kitchen Garden

If you haven’t sketched your beds yet, do that first. It makes the seed order calmer and cheaper: see planning your spring vegetable garden below.

What Seeds to Buy: The Calm Core Five

These five categories earn their keep in almost any seed order: they’re reliable on most UK soils, chalk included, productive per square metre, and genuinely useful in the kitchen. Branch out by all means, but these are the ones worth coming back to.

Add one “small joy” packet and stop there. Pollinators and colour for low effort: Calendula ‘Fiesta Gitana Mixed’ or nasturtiums.

The Don’t-Overbuy Rule

The single most useful seed-buying habit is to write the bed plan before opening any catalogue. Once you know which crop goes where, the seed order almost writes itself — and it’s a fraction of the length it would otherwise be. Most over-ordering happens in the browsing phase, before any planning has happened.

Practical rules:

• One packet is plenty for courgettes, squash, and cucumbers.
• Sow salads little-and-often (a pinch every 2–3 weeks), not the whole packet at once.
• Label each opened packet with the year and store in a cool, dry, dark place. Check germination rates before sowing old seed.
• On chalky East Sussex soil, the best upgrade to any seed order is actually soil prep: compost now, thank yourself in spring. See: Winter composting tips for chalky soil.

Three Baskets for Different Priorities

Budget basket — maximum meals per packet

• Rocket ‘Astra’ — fast, succession-sown, high yield
• Climbing Bean Mixed — among the best value per square metre of any crop
• One herb you actually cook with (parsley or chives)
• One root crop you’ll definitely eat — beetroot or carrot, choose one
• Chard — quietly heroic; always something to harvest

Best-for-most basket

• Rocket ‘Astra’ + Spinach ‘Perpetual’
• Tomato ‘Gardeners Delight’ — one reliable variety
• Climbing Bean Mixed
• Courgette ‘British Summertime’ — plan for one plant
• Calendula ‘Fiesta Gitana Mixed’ — pollinators and colour

Small treat basket

• A “posh” tomato variety, or a second tomato if you’re confident with seedlings
• Cut flowers: cosmos, zinnias, or sweet peas — the soul crops
• A few plug plants for anything you want without the seedling stage

Best Seeds for a Small Garden or Raised Bed

In a small garden, a raised bed or a few pots, every crop has to earn the ground it takes. The best choices crop heavily for their footprint, grow upwards or suit a container, and either keep cropping or clear quickly so the space can be sown again.

Climbers that save ground space

• Runner beans on a wigwam of canes take very little ground and crop for weeks. Sow in late April or May under cover, or direct once the frosts have passed.
• Climbing French beans need the same support and tend to cope better with a cool summer.
• Outdoor cucumbers trained up a sunny, sheltered fence take almost no ground, but they need warmth and dislike wind.

Cut-and-come-again crops

• Salad leaves: a short row or a 30cm pot, re-sown every two to three weeks, keeps leaves coming from spring to autumn.
• Chard: pick the outer leaves and one plant keeps going from late spring until the hard frosts.
• Spring onions: sow thickly, pull as needed, and re-sow every few weeks.

Quick crops to fill gaps

• Radishes are ready in about four to six weeks, so a short row can go into any gap between slower crops and be cleared before they need the space.
• Compact peas for picking young need only short canes and string.
• Beetroot: pull the young roots as you thin and the rest grow on into the space, giving a harvest over several weeks.

Best for pots

• A trailing cherry tomato in a hanging basket or a pot, with no pinching out or staking.
• Dwarf (bush) French beans, which need no support and crop well in a large pot.
• A compact courgette bred for containers, one plant to a pot of at least 40 litres.
• Chives, parsley, thyme and mint in a window box, with the mint in its own pot so it can’t take over.

Seeds vs Plug Plants: When It’s Worth Paying More

Plug plants aren’t a compromise — they’re a practical shortcut. Most growers end up using a mix of both, depending on the crop and the season.

Plug plants make sense when:

• You’re starting late and want immediate momentum
• You dislike the seedling stage for a particular crop (completely reasonable)
• You want a reliable tomato or pepper crop without indoor sowing in February

Seeds are better value when:

• You want lots of plants for little money (beans, salads, roots, herbs)
• You’re succession sowing through spring and summer — seed packets go much further
• You’re building a reliable annual kit where you know what works

The Small Kit That Makes Sowing Calmer

You don’t need a greenhouse to sow well. You need a setup you’ll actually use consistently, and it can be deliberately small:

• A couple of seed trays with lids: one tray per sowing session keeps it contained. Seed trays at T&M →
• Seed compost: not general-purpose — finer, lower-nutrient, better drainage for germination.
• Labels: write variety and date on every tray. A waterproof marker on white plastic labels lasts the season; keep a spare pack in the shed.

Planning Your Spring Vegetable Garden

Late winter is the best time to plan: you can see what the plot is doing, and the varieties you want are still in stock. A couple of quiet evenings and an hour outside with a tape measure is usually enough.

Know your plot

• Sun and shade: the spring sun is lower than summer’s. Tomatoes and courgettes need full sun; brassicas and leafy crops tolerate some shade.
• Wind: exposed beds need shelter, or tougher crops early in the season.
• Drainage: the corners that stay wet longest after rain are the last to plant, or the best place for a raised bed.
• Soil depth: on chalk the topsoil can be thin, so keep the deepest, best-fed beds for crops that need them.

Sketch the beds

Draw a rough rectangle for each bed, in pencil, and give each one a crop family. Two principles help:

• Rotation: don’t grow the same family in the same place as last year, especially brassicas (cabbage, kale, broccoli) and alliums (onions, garlic, leeks). Even a rough rotation reduces pest and disease build-up.
• Practicality: put the crops you pick most (herbs, salads, spring onions) nearest the path or gate, and the ones you visit least further away.

Keep the sketch: a note of what grew where is all the rotation record you need next year.

Start indoors or sow direct?

• Start indoors (a bright windowsill or a propagator): peppers and chillies from January to February; tomatoes from late February to March, ready to plant out after the last frost; courgettes and squash in April; brassicas in modules in March and April.
• Sow direct once the soil is workable: peas and broad beans from late February or March in sheltered spots; carrots from mid-March in a fine, stone-free seedbed; beetroot once the soil has warmed; salad leaves under a cloche in March, or in the open from April.

What to Sow When: A Simple Timeline

• Now–February: choose your core five packets. Sketch your bed plan. Start slow-starters indoors only if you have adequate light and warmth.
• March–April: main sowing window for beans, beetroot, salads, hardy herbs. Start tomatoes indoors (or buy plug plants later if you prefer). Sow salads in small batches every 2–3 weeks.
• May onwards: direct sow warmth-lovers after frosts. Plant out indoor-raised seedlings. Top up gaps with plug plants where needed.

FAQs

How many seed packets do I actually need?

For most UK allotments and real lives, five to eight packets is plenty to start. Choose your core five, add one small joy, and only add more once you’ve done the first sowings. Over-ordering is extremely easy from a seed catalogue and rarely leads to better growing.

What’s the best beginner crop?

Cut-and-come-again salads and climbing beans. Both are forgiving, produce quickly, and the harvests go straight onto the plate. Beetroot is also excellent on chalk-based soils — low maintenance and reliable.

Is it worth buying plug plants?

Yes, if they remove the part you find genuinely difficult or where timing hasn’t worked. Plug plants for tomatoes in particular are a sensible shortcut if you’re starting late or don’t have a propagator setup. Otherwise, seeds offer far better value and flexibility for most crops.