Do you like surprises in the veg department?

[veggiechicken]

Just curious!

Do you buy mixtures of seeds (Mixed lettuces, multicoloured carrots etc) or would you prefer to buy single varieties so that you know what each seed will produce?

Have you ever, deliberately, put seeds from different packets together and sown them, not knowing which was which - and not caring

I think you can guess my thoughts on this but I wondered whether there were other nutters who mix up their seeds for fun.

If you do, which seeds would you mix and which would you keep "pure"?
For example, would mixing runner beans be OK, or courgettes or cabbages?

[Jay-ell]

It seems that every pack of rainbow chard or bright lites I plant consists of mainly yellow stemmed plants.

I'm planting dwarf runner beans Jackpot this year which is a mix of red, white and two tone flowers.

I may sow salad mixes but that's probably it

[Alison]

Generally I want to know what I'm getting but do like mixed leaves for salads and stir fries

[Guest]

I have purposely got coloured carrot mix and coloured beetroot mix for this year as I have not found a reliable fav. so I might as well have a mix if I am buying the seed, but that is as far as my veg seed mixes go

[Lumpy]

I am definately a mix em together and chuck em about kind of person. I don't buy the pre mixed but get the individual types and mix them together myself as you can normally get an equal amount of each seed rather than one that dominates the pack.

My carrots, beetroot, radish, orientals etc all get the same treatment.

The down side when you do this for anything leafy is sometimes I have no idea if I'm eating a form of oriental mustard or a weed!

[happyhumph]

Generally the only mixes I buy are lettuce - cut and come again types. Don't have masses of space in veg plot so like to know what I'm getting.

Doesn't mean I don't experiment, just with named varieties

[Florence Fennel]

I make my own caca salad and carrots always and other veg if there are small amounts of seed in many packets

[Bren In Pots]

The only seeds I mix together are lettuce with all the rest I like to know what I'm harvesting.

[1Bee]

I bought a 'continuity pack' of 3 varieties of leek seed last year, but when it arrived they were all mixed in together.

I was so traumatised I didn't sow them and bought 3 separate packs instead.

But I can cope with mixed lettuce...

[Elfeda]

I mixed chilli seeds this year and sowed a packet ot aubergines mixed.
have all sorts of mixed seed packs and donno if I ever sow them.I also have mix of saved seed potato though I know some of them now but hard to remember once they are into ground.but I have selfsown beds for potatos too. and I never know if they were coming from tps selfsown ;p

[bazzaboy]

This thread reminds me of my first foray into gardening (many many years ago...) when I wanted to grow veg and herbs but didn't have much of a clue how to do it, knew I didn't want military rows etc (was the hippy era...) so mixed all the seeds into a big heap and broadcast them into a recently dug patch. The idea was to eat from the outside so whatever grew I would harvest and eat....
My first surprise was nothing seemed to grow at all - takes time, Lesson 1.... - I didn't water them or anything, nothing so sophisticated.... Then green things appeared so I thought I was on my way.....
I couldn't recognise anything but they seemed to be stinging nettles! I don't remember sowing them.... And slugs seemed to be pinching my idea and eating from the outside in as well (and from the inside out too!) I did find a small carrot (half eaten by something) and then a courgette got going and smothered a lot of stuff which was interesting but the courgettes were mostly eaten by slugs too....
So not a huge success unless I wanted to establish Slug Farm. Lesson 2. But birds seemed to think it was a good idea and visited often for slug lunch etc. Meantime I thought I'd better wise up a bit so bought a book - Mr Smith's Vegetable Garden (Geoffrey Smith, BBC, 1976) which was current at the time and which I still have and use (even if many of his spray remedies are now no longer available). Lesson 3.
Lesson 4: at the other end of the process - food, compost, regeneration - I learned Lesson 4 of the mixed broadcast approach via a sculpture I saw at Norwich School of Art where a final year student had loaded veg, fruit and seeds into a sealed aquarium and left it to see what happened, like a super-charged compost heap on display.... Fascinating.... decomposition and gunge plus struggling new life taking advantage and the odd citrus fruit just sitting there in the chaos like some Wise Guru. I've never forgotten that sculpture, it was quite disturbing in its display of the circle of life in one aquarium!
Sculpture and gardening/landscape go together quite well, not only sculptural artefacts in the garden but the garden itself as sculpture. A former colleague of mine, John Newling, has made a feature of this in his work and has recently been commissioned by the National Trust, if interested have a look at https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/nym...y-john-newling
John's philosophy is "I’m lucky enough to have a garden and I consider it to be a laboratory of wonder where I learn a lot, both spiritual and material."

Now with a bit more know-how I must revisit the broadcast technique (this time I could even eat or make tea or make a useful fertiliser with the resulting stinging nettles!)

[BUFFS]

last year I accidentally mixed climbing and dwarf French beans as I was tidying up, and these went into raised beds, if I had left them I would have needed a tall ladder to pick them, so I plan to pay attention to what i am doing in future..

[Penellype]

I generally haven't the space for mixes as I sow individual seeds for most things. My experiences of putting more than one variety (even of the same veg) in the same pot is that one is always finished a lot earlier than the other which I find frustrating. I do sometimes mix brassicas in the same planter over winter.

I do buy salad leaf mixes which I sow over winter indoors when I have more room. I use these to identify new things that I might like to grow on their own.

[Snoop Puss]

I feel positively boring: I like to know what I'm getting and the appropriate spacings, so I like things separate. I felt quite radical even just thinking about growing runner beans and climbing French beans together. Evidently I need to up my NQ (nuttiness quotient).

[Lumpy]

I feel positively boring: I like to know what I'm getting and the appropriate spacings, so I like things separate. I felt quite radical even just thinking about growing runner beans and climbing French beans together. Evidently I need to up my NQ (nuttiness quotient).

The site has not done the reply to post thingy properly...........Snoop this is for you.

Go on be a dibble and try your radish or beetroot..........................the antipation when you pull them to see what you and the slugs have got is wonderful.