According to a leading retailer, sales of seeds for tomatoes, courgettes, beans and other vegetables now outstrip seeds for flowers by a considerable margin, after the recession and the allotment revival encouraged an increasing number of people to take up their trowels.

B&Q said that sales of vegetable seeds had jumped nearly three-fold in recent weeks, compared with the same period last year, which was itself a record year with sales of plant seeds increasing by 30 per cent.

Out of the te...