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  • Carrot plug plants

    I caught a clip of a radio News report yesterday on the sale of carrot plug plants and was really annoyed by this!

    Why? Because it is a really obvious rip off against new gardeners

    I did a quick News search and there are plenty of reports to be found - so I thought I'd alert any newbies to this mean practice by some companies


    Taken from the Scotsman:

    NOVICE gardeners have been warned against buying plants that end up producing carrots costing more than £1 each. The Which? Gardening report found inexperienced growers could be spending 100 times more than they needed to on their vegetable patch.

    The study found one company, Gardening Direct, selling carrot plug plants for £1.09 each, with each plug produci
    ng just one carrot.

    With a resurgence in grow your own and spring approaching, the consumer group pointed out that carrots are easy to grow from seed. A packet containing hundreds of seeds can cost as little as £1.

    Which? found the same company selling beetroot plug plants at the same price. Beetroot is also easy to grow from seed, while four fresh beetroot can be bought in supermarkets for less than £1.

    Thompson & Morgan sold carrot plug plants for just 14p apiece, but they still offered "really poor value for money" when compared with growing the vegetables from seed, Which? said.

    Seed merchants Thompson & Morgan and Suttons and garden centre chain Dobies all sold beetroot plug plants for between 47p and 55p, once again poor value when judged against the price of seeds, according to the report.

    Which? Gardening editor Ceri Thomas said: "£1.09 for a carrot is definitely not value for money. Carrot seed is really cheap to buy and very easy to grow, even for novice gardeners.

    "Plug plants are a great option for slow-growing or tricky-to-raise crops, but we wouldn't recommend them for vegetables that can be easily grown from seeds. Plug plants for carrots and beetroot are a waste of money."

    Gardening Direct marketing manager Mark Sherwood said: "The Which? Gardening article highlighted our Autumn King carrot package as an expensive option for novice gardeners at £6.99 plus postage for ten plug plants. Whilst we believe that our premium-quality plug plants normally represent outstanding value for money, we do not wish to mislead gardeners in any way, nor be perceived as being poor value for money.

    "For this reason we have withdrawn our carrot plug plants from the market along with our beetroot plug plant varieties with immediate effect. We will continue to review our vegetable plug plant range to ensure that we offer gardeners of every level of expertise great plants at a highly competitive price."

    A Thompson & Morgan spokesman said: "Some people like the convenience and the fun and the pleasure of these plants and that's the way they choose to grow their vegetables. Sales of these products aren't very high."

    Suttons and Dobies declined to comment.

    Nutritionist Carina Norris said many people grow their own vegetables to save money, but also because home-grown produce has more vitamins and minerals.

    She said: "They are fresher because vegetables start to deteriorate immediately, so however quickly farms get them to the supermarket it's not going to be as quick as pulling some salad leaves from your garden.

    "You can save money but you can also lose money, because some things aren't expensive to buy."
    aka
    Suzie

  • #2
    What a rip-off to folk new to GYO. I don't understand how these companies are allowed to get away with it, at least Dick Turpin wore a mask.
    sigpic“Gorillas are very intelligent, but they don't have to be as delicate as chimps -- they can just smash open the termite nest,”
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    • #3
      Well done Piskie for letting our novice gardeners know about this. What a rip off!
      Granny on the Game in Sheffield

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      • #4
        It amazes me that they could be so short-sighted, as when these carrots fail (which they will!) the new gardeners will think it is something they did wrong, or that they haven't got what it takes to be a gardener.

        The new gardeners will (may) just go back to buying veg and so another gardener lost.

        It saddens me that companies, such as these mentioned in the articles, are of such calibre that they will be trusted by newbies

        I maybe should have put this in the Minor Rant, but I felt it needed its own headline.
        aka
        Suzie

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        • #5
          It does need it's own headline; these sorts of things make me so annoyed. Does this not also show the complete ignorance of the people who come up with these ideas?

          Gardening companies run by marketers, not market gardeners.

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          • #6
            I agree with you Piskie, it does need its own thread and it's going to make me think hard before I use the companies mentioned this year as I too think it is disreputable. It would be interesting to see how many other companies are trying this!
            Granny on the Game in Sheffield

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            • #7
              I read yesterday that when challenged they withdrew them. If they are already out in garden centres though, the unwary could still buy them. Wouldn't dream of trying to transplant a carrot though! Recipe for disaster!
              Whoever plants a garden believes in the future.

              www.vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated March 9th - Spring

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              • #8
                So we need a rip off thread mods !

                Theres that weed world advert again !

                Well done Piskie
                Last edited by Liza; 02-03-2010, 06:33 PM.
                You have to loose sight of the shore sometimes to cross new oceans

                I would be a perfectionist, but I dont have the time

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                • #9
                  How awful, as you say, Piskie, it could easily put new growers off from trying again.

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                  • #10
                    thats terrible,
                    how do they get away with things like that?
                    Linda B xxx

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                    • #11
                      Well done Suzie - you Radio 2 junkie. I caught that too carrots for £1.10!!! Given your public service thread a super rating! I've been looking for someone else who heard that on here...nothing escapes the grapes!

                      There are so many unscrupulous folk on the veggie growing gravy train at the moment.

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                      • #12
                        Reminds me of last year when at least one of the big DIY chains were selling fully grown and fruiting tomato and pepper plants - In MARCH! They were labled as "Ideal Patio Plants!" I wonder how many innocent first-time gardeners payed upwards of £7 (!) per plant and took them home, stuck them on their patio and watched them die overnight? That must have put a lot of potential gardeners off.
                        When the Devil gives you Cowpats - make Satanic Compost!

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Flummery View Post
                          I read yesterday that when challenged they withdrew them. If they are already out in garden centres though, the unwary could still buy them. Wouldn't dream of trying to transplant a carrot though! Recipe for disaster!
                          Doesn't have to be, I started a bunch off last year in toilet-tubes shoved in a 24-shot module tray, Chitted the seed so each one had three-four plants in and planted them out when the roots hit the bottom.... it was an ok crop, this year I expect my rootrainers to get a load of carrots through as soon as the broadies in there currently are out, then again after the climbing beans have gone through them... mind you for a quid I expect that to cover the seed, the compost and the amortisation on 2 sets of deep rootrainers and give me 48 deep plugs with three carrots per....

                          chrisc

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                          • #14
                            Although its no defence of the big guys I can remember talking to an old friend of my Dad's who'd run a local market garden/nursery and I was always amazed at how a lot of things for which I knew the seed costs were massively different per seed would be the same price when in a 3" pot as a plant.... his simple explanation was that the seed cost was miniscule next to the labour needed to produce the plant....

                            He's the guy responsible for me associating serious veg growing with orange rotavators... he had a Howard Super Gem with a massive twin-cylinder engine on it with the double-wheel kit, inside wheels were paddles and outside ones were tired.... he sold his early Mk3 Gem to my father.... those things aret he reason I'll be trying to get the engine on a 400 running this weekend .......

                            chrisc

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                            • #15
                              Shocking stuff. Glad I was never taken in by something like that!

                              On the tomatoes point Creemteez mentioned, that'd really put people off. Someone I know had a rough year with tomatoes too - though thankfully not from idiots selling fruiting tomatoes as a "patio plant" before last frost...
                              After growing three varieties from plug in a grow bag under a soft plastic mini-greenhouse... watering them properly and feeding them at the right times - they got the blight.
                              She didn't know what it was, and I only heard about it after they'd binned the lot so too late to even have a chance of saving the unaffected bits of the plants.

                              I'm not sure if she's having another go this year, but it was a big disappointment. Other than a small herb bed with basil (decimated by slugs in 2 days flat), oregano, corriander and chives in it - that was an almost total loss of her crops for the year. Luckily they get a few toms off them before the blight took hold so hopefully she wasn't put off entirely. Still a shame regardless though.

                              I'm basically just saying this in here to show that while the shops pulling these stunts should be ashamed of themselves, really it's just another stumbling block on an already potentially rocky road to GYO... admittedly it's a block that shouldn't be there - but it's by no means certain that it'd put someone of who'd have otherwise had great success.

                              Hmm - I sound like I'm defending those companies. I'm really not. I think it's indefensible!

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