Edible Plant Seeds to Grow at Home

The useful way to sort this shelf is not by plant family but by how long you are willing to wait. Two products mark the extremes, and everything else falls between them.

Types of edible plant seeds we stock

Microgreens and sprouts, ready in weeks

The fastest thing here. Microgreens Mizuna (Brassica rapa) is sown in early spring and cut after a few weeks, indoors, no garden needed. Rocket, cress, basil and radish come as sprouting seeds too, and the full set sits in microgreens and sprouting.

Herbs and spices

Ten herb lines, plus seed packs if you would rather not buy six packets. The BBQ Herbs Seed Pack holds basil, marjoram, cayenne pepper, dill, sage and thyme in one go. Lovage, summer savory, angelica and rue are here as singles.

Fruit and vegetables

This is the bulk of it: seven tomato varieties, two aubergines, three melons, watermelon, alpine strawberry, tomatillo and ground cherry on the fruit side; carrots, onion, chard, peas, broad and pole beans, cucumber, gherkin and fourteen squash and pumpkin lines on the vegetable side. Narrower versions live in fruit seeds and vegetable seeds.

Edible flowers and the odd ones out

Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) and two cornflowers go straight onto a plate. Then the outliers: Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera), the Ayurvedic shrub also called Indian ginseng, which reaches about a metre and flowers around midsummer with small red berries; dandelion; Victoria rhubarb; and barley sold as cat grass (Hordeum vulgare).

Why grow edible plants from seed

Mostly for the varieties shops do not carry. Indigo Rose tomatoes, a Thai Pink Egg cocktail tomato, blue podded peas and a Purple Haze carrot are not supermarket products. Sowing from seed is also the only way to get an Atlantic Giant, and picking anything ten minutes before eating it is a genuinely different flavour.

How to get started, and where it goes wrong

Most of these are direct-sown once frost has passed. The Atlantic Giant Pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima) goes in indoors in mid-spring or outdoors in early summer, wants a warm sunny spot and fertile soil, and can pass 100kg, so give it far more room than you think. The honest awkward one is Kiwi (Actinidia deliciosa): it germinates in a sealed bag on damp kitchen paper over about two weeks, then needs small pots and slightly acidic soil, and three to four months before it is worth moving on. Not a first project.

Choosing for your space

Windowsill: microgreens and sprouts. Balcony pots: herbs, chard, sweet pointed pepper, alpine strawberry, which takes full sun but wants shielding from hard afternoon sun. Open bed: pumpkins, melons, beans, anything that sprawls. If you want the whole catalogue instead of this slice, all seeds lists everything.