What is the Advantage and Disadvantage of Vegetable Seeds

It has been years since my very first vegetable seed starting season. I have loved the process since day one – planting a seed into a pot, watching it develop into strong and healthy plant, and then seeing it produce a harvest once moved out to the ground…

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But it wasn’t until I began creating this guide that I asked myself about the benefits as well as the drawbacks of this part of the vegetable growing process. Here is what I came up with. I will start with the good things first:

The Pros

Get an early harvest in spring.

The first good thing that I could think of was that growing our own vegetable seedlings helps me open the gardening season earlier than usual. You see, I don’t have to wait until spring to plant the first seeds. I can start sowing them much earlier, even towards the end of winter when it’s still freezing outside…

And, when the weather finally improves and the soil gets warm enough for planting, I already have strong and well-established plants in my hands which are eager to continue growing as soon as I move them outside.

This puts us ahead of time and I can extend our growing season for at least a month. And the best part about it is that we also get to harvest the plants sooner. Because the sooner you plant, the sooner you harvest the produce.

Grow more vegetables and in a faster way.

The second thing I like about vegetable seed starting is that it gives me much more control over the plants’ growing environment. In other words, I can create near-perfect growing conditions for the plants which means that:

• Seeds germinate faster. When I plant seeds at just the right deepth and keep the soil always moist, they sprout faster.
• Sprouts turn into seedlings quickly. In their early stages of life, I give plants plenty of food, light, warmth and water. And this resource-rich, stress-free and pest-free environment helps them quickly progress from sprouts to mature seedlings.
• Seedlings grow into healthy and strong plants. When I transplant the plants out to the garden or the allotment, they are healthy and strong which helps them adapt to their new environment more quickly and with less stress. They then tend to grow faster and produce more harvest.

Save money on vegetable seeds, seedlings and fresh produce.

Another thing I like about seed starting is that it helps us save money. It does that in different ways:

• We spend less on seeds. In the past, I would direct-sow all the vegetables. It worked, but I would often had to use an entire bag of seeds for just one garden patch or row. But now, when I start seeds at home, I only need two to three seeds – and often even less – to grow a plant. So, one bag of seeds lasts me much longer.
• We stopped buying vegetable seedlings. We used to spend around 100 € (around $100) per season on all the vegetable plants we needed – sometimes even more if we went for the organic ones. But since I started growing our own seedlings, we don’t have to buy them from nurseries anymore.
• We buy even less fresh vegetable produce. Ever since I introduced seed starting into our vegetable gardening, we grow much more food. We rarely buy fresh vegetables in stores during high season – only those that we fail to grow ourselves. There is just no need for it, because we have enough homegrown food of our own.
• We give away surplus plants. I always start more seeds and grow more plants than necessary to make sure we don’t end up empty-handed if we lose some due to plant diseases or ests. That is why we usually have surplus plants. We give those away to neighbours, fellow gardeners, friends and family and we never want or expect anything in return. But we often get something anyways. For example, one neighbour gave our son toys, another one gave us two dozen of strawberry plants, a fellow gardener gave us tomatoes.

The savings are not life-changing, but they do add up year after year. Plus, we get to enjoy eating more organic foods which is worth it’s weight in gold.

Be more self-sufficient and live more sustainably.

The last – but not the least – reason why I love seed-starting so much is because it helps us be more self-sufficient and live more sustainably. By growing our own vegetable seedlings, whether it is outside on the balcony or indoors under the lights, we don’t have to rely on those from plant nurseries anymore…

Don’t get me wrong, though, buying plants from garden centres is a good option too. They make it easier to grow your own food. The vegetables you get from those plants are still way more sustainable than the ones you find in supermarket. But when I compare seedlings from a nursery to the ones I grow at home, I do see some clear differences:

• The bought ones are raerly raised locally.
• They are usually sold in plastic pots and trays which are prone to breaking and can thus contribute to plastic waste.
• The non-organic plants are fed with artificial (synthetic) fertilizers and treated with pesticides.

On the other hand, with homegrown plants, things are different. I have the option to plant organic seeds in organic soil. I can feed the plants with organic fertilizers. I can go even further and make my own seed-starting compost and my own organic fertilizer. This way, I am able to grow my plants more sustainably and environmentally friendly.

And the more food we manage to produce in this sustainable and environmentally friendly way, the greated our impact is – especially when we share our surplus plants and vegetables with family, neighbours and friends.

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The Cons

It’s worth noting that vegetable seed starting isn’t all daises and roses. There is also a darker side to it, if I may exaggerate a bit.

It requires time and work.

It takes time and a bit of effort to turn a seed into a ready-to-transplant vegetable seedling. The nature does most of the heavy lifting, but I still have to find time to do things like fill the pots and cell trays with soil, plant seeds, water seedlings, and – when plants get big enough – plant them out to the garden or to the allotment.

I love gardening, and to me, it is more of an act of love than labor. Nonetheless, it can sometimes be challenging to find the time for it. In spring, for instance, when it is prime time to start pretty much all the vegetables out there. Or during summer, for example, when it is so hot outside that I have to water the plants every day.

It is not cost-free.

A vegetable plant that I raise from seed at home by myself is much cheaper than the one I can buy at a garden centre, but it is definitely not free. There are two types of costs involved:

• One-time costs. These include things like pots, trays, garden trowel, bucket with a spout. Since we have already been growing food before, I had most of these covered. I did eventually buy indoor lights, though, which were pretty expensive. But don’t worry, you can raise most vegetable plants successfully without them too.
• Ongoing costs. These include seeds, soil substrate (mix), fertilizer and water. If you decide to grow indoors as well, then add electricity costs to the list as well. I purchase these occassionally when I run out of them.

The good news is that you can reduce some of these costs with a bit of time, effort, and creativity. For example, I save seeds from some of our vegetables whenever possible. I occassionally make my own all-natural, organic fertilizer. And I bet I could make a good seed-starting compost by myself too if I had the resources for it.

It is not risk-free.

I have had my share of failures over the years. I have lost batches of seedlings for various reasons. For instance, I have forgotten to water the plants on hot summer days and lost hundreds of plants as a consequence. There was also a time when caterpillars attacked one of my cell trays in which I grew kohlarbi and severely damaged its leaves. And then there’s the damping off – a plant disease that has decimated my plants on several occassion and continues to be a challenge.

There are definitely risks involved, but I have learned to accept these risks as part of the process. I understand that not every planted seed will grow into a healthy, harvest-producing plant. But most of them do. Remember this when things go wrong!

If you’ve read much of this blog, you know that most of the vegetables, flowers, and even herbs I grow began as seeds germinated in my little greenhouse. Frankly, I get a little giddy every late winter when these arrive:

I have my reasons for preferring this method, but there are plenty of good reasons to plant your flower and vegetable gardens with small plants you buy locally. Today, I thought I’d go over a few of the pros and cons for each method.

Starting from Seed: Pros

• You can grow exactly the varieties you want because you order the seeds and grow them yourself.
• Seeds are much less expensive than plants, so you can grow more of everything.
• You control growing conditions for your plants from germination to transplantation in their permanent locations in your garden.
• The big sense of accomplishment that comes from doing it all yourself is a great feeling.

Starting from Seed: Cons

• Unless you can provide optimal indoor conditions for germination, you may get poor germination rates.
• If you direct-sow in the garden, you are at the mercy of the weather. You can ameliorate a lack of rain with watering, but you must watch for soil crusting that can prevent seeds from emerging, and if you get a hard rain, seeds will travel remarkable distances, or disappear entirely.
• If you direct-sow in the garden, you also must watch for raids from marauding voles, and if soil temperatures are too cool or too warm, some seeds won’t germinate.

• Most herb seeds, many flower seeds, and even a lot of vegetable seeds are quite small. You’ll need practice to become adept at handling them, putting them where you want them, etc.

• Soil depth is critical when planting seeds. Many beginners plant seeds too deeply, which prevents their germination. Follow planting depth directions on the seed packets assiduously.

Starting from Plants You Buy: Pros

• You save enormous amounts of time by not having to bother with seed germination, and transplanting and nurturing seedlings until they’re ready for your garden.
• You can buy exactly the number of plants you want without spending time trying to find homes for extra plants you grew because of inaccurate guessing of seed germination rates.
• You can see living plants before you buy them, rather than relying on often-overflattering catalog descriptions. This allows you to select the sturdiest, healthiest plants with the best root systems.
• If you live in an area like mine, where farmers’ markets abound, you’ll be able to purchase healthy, locally grown plants ready for your garden. And because these folks usually sell the same varieties they grow for market, you’ll be able to choose from plants well-adapted for your area, grown by experts who love their work. And they often sell heirloom varieties of plants as well as hybrid choices.

Starting from Plants: Cons

• If your only option for plant starts is a big box store’s garden section, you usually won’t get great plants. These are often grown in one place and shipped all over the country, so varieties aren’t necessarily the best for your region, and are usually limited to a few choices. Also, the plants are not treated well during shipping or even in the garden section at the store. Have you ever noticed how staff at such places leave innocent plants out in conditions that are too hot and/or too cold? And how they water the poor things? Find a better local source for your plants or suffer the consequences.
• You don’t know if your purchased plants always grew in optimal conditions. Even if they look healthy, if they were exposed to temperatures below 50 degrees, studies have shown that tomato plants are never as productive as those maintained above that temperature.
• Often the sizes of plants you buy are limited. Early in the season, they may all be small. Small plants don’t handle transplanting stress as well as larger ones. On the other hand, larger transplants can break during transplanting. As with seed sowing, transplanting takes practice and patience to perfect.

• Buying plants is more expensive than buying seeds, and if you lose plants during transplanting, you’ll spend more money to buy replacements. Most folks will buy fewer varieties when they buy plants instead of seeds because of cost considerations.

I hope this helps my fellow Piedmont gardeners as they contemplate this year’s growing season. Time, money, and experience all impact what you decide to grow. I hope this post helps you clarify how you’ll choose what to grow in your garden this year.

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