To Seed or Not To Seed

Grow your own organic produce - it is simple and economical!

We are planning for this year's garden and grappling with a question. Start our plants from seed or purchase seedlings from the local garden center? Here is what we determined. Start from seed! There are two compelling reasons to start from seed; cost and quality.

Cost ~ A good reason for growing your own plants from ‘scratch’ is the cost savings. If you purchase seedlings from your local garden supply store, you can expect to spend at least $3.50 per plant. Based on our own seed starting set up, we determined starting our plants from seed provides about a $2.50 per plant savings.

Having a variety in the garden is important to us and that means lots of seedlings! We purchased two 72 cell seed starter trays for $10 each. This year we went with Rapid Rooters. We found some locally for $0.25 each. We have used coir in the past with success, but we read about the Rapid Rooters and decided they were worth a try. As an alternative growing medium you can use coconut coir. Coir bricks run about $3.00 a brick and expand to make 5-7 quarts of growing medium. You can make our own mini pots from newspaper slated for the recycling bin (aka: free!).

To help our seedlings grow up to be big and strong we added a grow light for $10.00. Our seeds are all organic and most are heirloom so we can harvest seeds for the following year. Average price per seed pack is $3.00 or ten cents a seed.

Cost for 144 self started organic seedlings:
2 – 72 cell desktop greenhouses $20           144 – Rapid Rooters  $0.25
1 – Grow Light $10                                    24 – Organic seed packets $72

Total for 144 plants: $138 OR $0.96 per plant

The following season will net a lower cost since the greenhouses, light and seeds won’t have to be repurchased!

Quality ~ The second and equally important reason for starting your own vegetables from seed is quality. When you start your seeds instead of buying the garden supply center’s inventory, you know exactly when and how it was started. It is critical that plants have a strong start in order to fight off disease and insect attacks throughout the growing cycle. Personally, we prefer to know that we are tending a purely organic garden and the only way to do that is to start the plants ourselves.

Starting your own veggies from seed is the way to go! It is economical and healthy for your plants and you! We’ll keep you posted on our progress. We would love to hear how your garden grows. Until then…happy gardening!

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