Franchi Seeds in Ireland
BloomySeeds is an Irish stockist of Franchi Sementi seed. The packets are held in Co. Longford, not in a warehouse in another country, so an order placed on Monday is usually in your letterbox by the end of the week.
If you have been buying Franchi packets and paying to have them sent across a border, this page is for you.
Who Franchi actually are
Franchi Sementi is a family seed house near Bergamo, in northern Italy. The family started selling seed in 1783 and the business has passed down through seven generations of the same family. That is not marketing copy, it is simply how long they have been doing it.
What matters to a gardener is what that longevity produced: a catalogue built around regional Italian varieties rather than around what is easiest to harvest by machine. Franchi kept the courgette from Albenga, the tomato from San Marzano, the chicory from Treviso. Most large seed companies dropped varieties like these decades ago because they do not ship well or ripen all at once. Franchi kept them because Italian growers kept asking for them.
Why the packets are worth the money
Three things separate a Franchi packet from a supermarket one.
Open pollinated, not F1 hybrid. Almost everything in the range breeds true. Save seed at the end of the season and next year’s plants will be the same. With an F1 hybrid you have to buy again every single year. There is more on this on our heirloom and heritage seed page.
The packets are large. Franchi fill by weight rather than by seed count, and the weight is generous. A packet of lettuce or rocket will sow a row several times over, which is why the cost per plant works out lower than it first looks even at €3.50 a packet.
The varieties have a place attached. Cavolo nero from Tuscany. Cime di rapa from Puglia. Tropea onions from Calabria. These are not generic vegetables with an Italian name on the front, they are the specific types those regions grow and cook.
Do Italian varieties actually work in Ireland?
Mostly yes, and better than people expect.
Ireland and northern Italy share more than the marketing suggests. Bergamo has cold, wet winters. The Franchi catalogue is full of brassicas, chicories and winter salads bred for exactly that. Cavolo nero, radicchio, escarole, cime di rapa and winter lettuce all perform well in an Irish bed with no protection at all.
The honest exceptions are the heat lovers. Aubergines, the larger peppers and the big beefsteak tomatoes want a polytunnel or a greenhouse in Ireland. Grown outdoors in a normal Irish summer they will sulk. We say so on the product pages rather than letting you find out in September.
Everything we sell is registered with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
Buying Franchi seed in Ireland
We hold over 240 lines in stock. Packets start at €3.50.
Postage is €4 for orders under 500g and €9 above that, and delivery is included on orders over €40. Everything goes out with An Post from Co. Longford. Seed can be posted within Ireland and the EU without restriction. Shipping to Great Britain and the United States is limited by plant health rules, so those destinations are restricted at checkout.
There is a phone number on the contact page and a person on the other end of it. If you are not sure whether a variety will cope with your site, ask before you order rather than after.
Browse the range: herbs, lettuce and salad, peas and beans, heirloom varieties. Not sure what to start now? See when to sow in Ireland.