Vetch seeds in sweet pea packet

I never separate sweet peas. However many germinate in a pot stay together, getting potted on or planted out. They hate having their roots disturbed.

I germinate all mine on kitchen towel in plastic tubs.

Think I've had some vetch pop up in my sweet peas this year!

Whose sweet peas were they in? Is someone being a con artist or do you think it’s a genuine mistake?
Are you going to grow them on to see what you’ve got?

I remember one year having a couple of vetch in the sweet peas. I did vow to grow them on out of curiosity but they died of neglect.

Whose sweet peas were they in? Is someone being a con artist or do you think it’s a genuine mistake?
Are you going to grow them on to see what you’ve got?

Premier Seeds Direct. It was only about 14 out of 1000 seeds, and it seems to be an issue across multiple seed brands over several years, so it's probably a contamination issue on the seed producer's end.

I'm not sure how they produce sweet pea seed, or any climbing plant seed, on a large scale. I can't imagine they have acres of support systems in place for the plants to get 6ft tall. If they let them scramble across the ground, I can see how vetch could go unseen, and if they are densely planted who is going to be able to pick out a different leaf shape without spending hours trawling across the fields?

The seeds look similar to sweet peas too, so they wouldn't get removed during the cleaning/sorting process. If the seed producer is using their own saved seed year after year, I could see how the vetch keeps getting mistakenly included.

I left them in the tray after taking a photo. If they're not already dead I'll put them in a pot tomorrow and see what happens.

More vetch, this time in the Royal Family mix from Premier Seeds Direct. I contacted them and they said that the contamination is due to the way they're grown (in a field, presumably sprawling along the ground), and the supplier has a tolerance of 2-3%. I understand it's hard to get the vetch seeds out since they look so similar to sweet pea seeds, but have you had any other varieties of flower or vegetable have random things pop up in them? The only one I can recall is a rogue cabbage in a packet of broccoli from Real Seeds.

More vetch, this time in the Royal Family mix from Premier Seeds Direct. I contacted them and they said that the contamination is due to the way they're grown (in a field, presumably sprawling along the ground), and the supplier has a tolerance of 2-3%. I understand it's hard to get the vetch seeds out since they look so similar to sweet pea seeds, but have you had any other varieties of flower or vegetable have random things pop up in them? The only one I can recall is a rogue cabbage in a packet of broccoli from Real Seeds.

Some time ago I had a packet of regular leaved tomato seeds from Premier Seeds and two of the resulting plants were potato leaved (this also happened with some other seeds but their name escapes me).  I told Premier Seeds but they didn't even bother to reply.

More vetch, this time in the Royal Family mix from Premier Seeds Direct. I contacted them and they said that the contamination is due to the way they're grown (in a field, presumably sprawling along the ground), and the supplier has a tolerance of 2-3%. I understand it's hard to get the vetch seeds out since they look so similar to sweet pea seeds, but have you had any other varieties of flower or vegetable have random things pop up in them? The only one I can recall is a rogue cabbage in a packet of broccoli from Real Seeds.

Some time ago I had a packet of regular leaved tomato seeds from Premier Seeds and two of the resulting plants were potato leaved (this also happened with some other seeds but their name escapes me).  I told Premier Seeds but they didn't even bother to reply.

Not replying isn't very good form, hmm? I am curious if professional plant growers would be happy with 2-3% of their seed being duff. Would they have to overorder seed and then pay people to pick out thousands of vetch seedlings? My theory is that the vetch is only in the cheap mixes, and single varieties will be grown under conditions which will limit risk of contamination (hence the extra cost).