The £1carrot gets a bit of stick

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 producing 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"For this reason we have withdrawn our carrot plug plants from the market along with our beetroot plug plant varieties with immediate effect.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."