All gardeners face a decision every year: whether to start your garden from seeds vs. starter plants. Both methods have their pros and cons. In the past I’ve started from seedlings almost exclusively. It’s hard to resist the ease of buying an already started plant at a farmer’s market or garden store.
Young plants are very sensitive, so being able to skip that potentially difficult stage is very tempting. You can avoid the big risk that your seeds will fail to germinate (honestly my biggest gardening worry). If plants encounter any trouble during the first few weeks of growth, it may affect its progress in the future as well. So why not have someone else do all that hard work for you?
Starting from seeds allow for greater variety
A big reason to start your plants from seeds is that there is a much larger selection of plants available for you to grow. If you look for seedlings only, you're limited to what your local purveyor has available. Chances are, they aren’t likely to have a wide variety and may only grow popular plants that they can be sure to sell. If you’re at all like me and want to start growing more varied herbs and greens, starting from seed may be your only option.
For example, I knew that I wanted to grow my own fenugreek greens this year, but it would likely be impossible to find them as a seedling. Luckily, you can order almost any seed imaginable and have it delivered. There may also be a specific variety of a common plant that you want to cook with. Let’s use chili peppers as an example. If you love ceviche, you may want to experiment and try making it with traditional Peruvian Aji Rocoto chili peppers. Chances are you can’t buy those at your local supermarket, but you can probably buy some seeds and grow them yourself. The same goes for tomatoes, lettuce, or any other plant that has many different varieties.
Seeds may be more economical than starter plants
Growing your garden from seeds vs. starter plants is also economical. For the cost of just a few seedling, you could purchase hundreds of seeds from numerous diverse varieties. Let’s say you buy a basil seedling at your market for $5 dollars. Each starter tray may have several plants, but a $2 packet of basil on sale for 100 seeds is a savings of about 5000%! And you don’t have to worry about using them all at once. Seeds can be stored in a cool place for at least a year (check your specific variety for shelf life).
Seeds allow flexibility and control in your growing season
Another huge advantage of growing from seeds over starters is that it gives you much more flexibility in controlling your growing season. At my local farmers markets, seedlings are generally only for sale in the spring before starters make way for fully grown produce. If you want to find seedlings at any other point in the growing season, you would have to find a specialized garden store and availability may still be limited.
Now, think about what you could do instead if you grow your plants from seeds at staggered intervals. Let me use cilantro as an example, as I plan on doing this myself. Cilantro can be a fast growing plant. If you want a steady supply for the entire growing season you can plant some every few weeks. You can sow seeds 1-2 weeks apart depending on how much you might anticipate using. With an average time to maturity of about 1-½ to 2 months, your first planting of cilantro will be ready to harvest.
When that supply has been exhausted, the next one should be ready to replace it! This is the same technique I use when growing plants commercially in my day job to ensure a steady supply of produce. I carefully calculate the seeding and harvest dates to ensure there’s always crops available year round.
There are numerous benefits to initiating your crops from seeds rather than starter plants. While there will always be exceptions, especially with seeds that can be difficult to germinate, such as mint and rosemary, but in the end, I find growing plants from seeds to be much more satisfying. Knowing that you nurtured the plants from start to finish enhances the pleasure of savoring the final garden even more.
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