4 Benefits of Starting Your Garden from Seed

As you plan your vegetable garden, you might consider visiting a nursery or a big box store to purchase plants. But there's a more rewarding and fulfilling alternative: starting your garden from seeds.

‍

The process of planting a seed, watching it sprout, and caring for it as it grows into a plant can be quite rewarding. Starting your vegetable garden from seeds and growing your own food provides several benefits:

‍

Cost-effective

‍

Buying a packet of seeds is cheaper than buying a starter plant. The cost of a starter plant could be equal to the cost of purchasing around 200 seeds. Splitting these seeds with your family members or neighbors can make it even more cost-effective.

‍

Access to more variety

‍

Your local nursery or gardening store cannot stock every possible starter plant. Seeds enable you to cultivate the rare, unusual, or specific plants that you prefer to grow. Whether it's a Persian cucumber or a purple-colored oxheart tomato, you can easily find seeds for all these varieties.

‍

Better growing plants

‍

Unlike large stores that handle thousands of plants, you can provide your plants with the necessary attention and care. This makes buying seeds a better choice than purchasing transplants for all vegetables. Certain plants, like carrots, radishes, and corn, grow better from seeds than from transplants.

‍

Become self-sustaining

‍

As you use the foods from your vegetable garden, you can collect the seeds from those foods and replant them in your garden. This helps you maintain a steady supply of seeds and you don’t even need to buy new seeds, making the process even more economical and self-sustaining. Also, the seeds that come from your crops are better suited for your specific growing conditions.

‍

A note about starting seeds indoors

‍

Depending on your planting zone, the growing seasons might be too short to start a garden from seed outdoors. The cold weather and the soil conditions prevent seeds from germinating and kill young seedlings.

‍

To start your seeds earlier, you can also start your seedlings indoors near a sunny window, a warm radiator, or on a heated seed mat. Then you can move them outside when conditions are suitable. You could also invest in cold frames or row covers for added protection.