How many seeds do you really need?

"This might be a bit difficult and liable to change. I think I must give Rugosa Friulana a go. Then again, are we choosing to cope with Armageddon, or just choosing our favourites. The criteria might result in slightly different variety choices. Favourites might be the most flavourful, whereas Armageddon would require resilience and productivity."

I don't have a real reason for asking - are you surprised? Basically, I looked at all my seeds and thought "Most of these I will never attempt to grow! Each year, I go straight to my favourites with maybe a couple of other varieties for......variety!"

Every year, I could buy the same 10 packets of seed and grow enough to keep me happy. If they were not F1, and I could save seeds from, I would never need to buy any more seeds.......ever. Of course, I know that I would acquire more through swapping, but the principle is the same.

Not buy seeds EVER!? Not going to happen, there's always something out there I want to try.  I bought some of those knobbly courgettes Garrett likes only this morning. Did I need them? No. Did I want to try them? Hell, yes! Plus with your addiction,  it would be impossible    

I've just been looking at our local Nextdoor site. There's a gentleman there with self confessed physical and mental problems. He's become a 'prepper' and is giving everyone advice on coping with energy/food shortages.  What to buy and stockpile to survive. You could become seriously concerned if you took it all to heart. Hence the Armageddon reference to my choices.

Actually, I buy very few seeds - unless they're of the random assortment/lucky dip variety which I find difficult to ignore - because I like the surprise element. I'm just a big kid at heart (the rest of me is a wrinkled old biddy).
There's a lot of chatter about prepping at the moment. As a hoarder, I'm prepared for food shortages, but, I'm not going to buy bottled water to secrete under my bed (as I've seen advised. )

Tomatoes - rosella
Courgette - tromboncino
Squash - spaghetti
Pumpkin - small sugar
Chilli - jalapeno
Basil - lettuce leaf
Kale - dwarf green curl (but any would do as they all taste like kale)
Lettuce - mixed
Beans - I honestly can’t choose between fresh , dried , runners or french
Broccoli - actually a calabrese any none F1

"This might be a bit difficult and liable to change. I think I must give Rugosa Friulana a go. Then again, are we choosing to cope with Armageddon, or just choosing our favourites. The criteria might result in slightly different variety choices. Favourites might be the most flavourful, whereas Armageddon would require resilience and productivity."

I don't have a real reason for asking - are you surprised? Basically, I looked at all my seeds and thought "Most of these I will never attempt to grow! Each year, I go straight to my favourites with maybe a couple of other varieties for......variety!"

Every year, I could buy the same 10 packets of seed and grow enough to keep me happy. If they were not F1, and I could save seeds from, I would never need to buy any more seeds.......ever. Of course, I know that I would acquire more through swapping, but the principle is the same.

I love trying / growing new varieties. The list I’ve put up is favourites ( which I found very difficult, limiting myself to 10 ) . The reason for the 10 I’ve chosen are very simply in 3 categories. Either flavour, versatility, reliability. Armageddon would require more than 10 . I might be able to do it with 20.

Tomatoes - any productive, good tasting beefsteak
Cucumber - Party Time F1 for its productivity
Chillies - any Jalapeno
Sweet Pepper - Cornitos F1, the most productive sweet pepper I've ever grown (almost impossible to find outside of the USA now, unfortunately)
Basil - any Italian type
Parsley - Italian Giant flat leaf
Kohlrabi - any F1 because they don't go as woody if they get too big
Lettuce - moving more towards cos now because I like the crunch
Calabrese - Marathon F1 for its speed of heading up and overall reliability
Spring Onions - Winter White Lisbon for overwintering, anything for spring/summer with a preference for hybrids for their uniformity

Sweetcorn (Swift F1) and French Beans (any dwarf type) didn't quite make the cut. I like them, but also get bored of them quite quickly.