The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Cheap Vegetable Seeds

Jan 21, 2009 cheap, coupon codes, free, seed saving, seeds 8 Comments

Looking at my web logs I have seen the query for “cheap vegetable seeds” a few times so figured would be good to help people find what they are looking for. Being The Cheap Vegetable Gardener, I can do better than “Cheap vegetable seeds” how about some “free vegetable seeds” as well.

Cheap Vegetable Seeds

• Buy online – You can find a much greater selection and some great prices compared to your local home and garden center.  For example right now:
  • The name is not too exciting but Generic Seeds offers no thrills packaging with quality seeds and very reasonable prices and if you spend $20 or more shipping is on them.
  • If you want to stock up on a variety of seeds Heriloom Organics has a good deal on their Survival Seed Vault which includes 25 extra large packets of open polluniated seeds, which you can recollect and replant indefinately.
  • Gurney Seeds & Nursery Co and Garden’s Alive are having a get $40 worth of seeds for only $20 as well as many varieties to pick from at reasonable prices.
• Local seed swaps – Many groups will have annual seed swaps where you enter for a small fee and/or a packet or two of seeds and you leave with much more than you came with.

Free Vegetable Seeds (pretty much)

• Ask your neighbors – Notice your neighbor is a gardener, check if they want to go in on a seed order and share unless you really need 200 carrots this year.
• Harvest your own seeds – If your plants bolt to seed early this year, don’t pull them out let them create some seeds for next season.  Notice your neighbor has some seeding plants, ask if you can get some (important part is to ask though)
• Get seeds from the grocery store – Before putting those vegetables in the compost bin, set the seeds aside to let them dry and you got some free seeds.  Though a word of warning many vegetables are hybrids and may be infertile or not produce the same quality of product but hey its free.
• Check your spice rack – Many cases you can plant seeds from your spice rack.  Some ideas, mustard seed, dill seed, coriander, poppy seed, celery seed.  If your spice rack is lacking you can pay a few cents buy a teaspoon of organic spices in bulk, last time I bought dill seeds got about 100 seeds for $0.05.
• Seed swap web sites – Below I have listed a few links where you can share seeds with others.  This is a great way to find some heirloom seeds you might not be able to find in stores/seed catalogs.  In many cases people will offer seeds for free by just sending a SASE (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope)  Just remember to pay it forward when you come into a plethora of seeds yourself.
  • http://forum.cheapvegetablegardener.com/index.php?board=1.0
  • http://www.almanac.com/swap/index.php
  • http://www.thriftyfun.com/board_seeds.html
  • http://www.garden.org/seedswap/
  • http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/exseed/

How to grow seeds in your garden

Jul 9, 2009 cheap, seed saving, seeds 3 Comments

Because of a strange heat wave we had in June, I seem to be growing more seeds than vegetables this year.  Now as they say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  In that spirit I am planning on increasing the number of plants I will allow to completely go to seed this year.

I have always saved cilantro seeds, the first time it was almost an accident my daughter liked the pretty white flowers and after neglecting my garden at the end of the summer I had perfectly dried cilantro seeds on the plant.  Free and renewable supply of seeds, what could be better.  If I don’t have you convinced here are some more reasons:

Cheap: You really can’t beat free.  With the price of seeds increasing depending on the variety of seeds you grow this could save you a considerable amount of money per year.

Easy: The creation of seeds of seeds is a completely natural process that has been happening for millions of years.  In many cases you can do practically nothing other than harvest the seeds before the birds do.

Natural selection:  With a little attention you can hand select only your best plants to harvest seeds from.  If the plant survived to produce seeds it has to be at least a little disease tolerant and if you intentionally pick plants that bolted early you can also establish your own slow bolting variety.

Limited availability: Even with all the resources on the internet your favorite seed company may not always carry your favorite varieties or in some cases just a few seeds might be hard to come by.  If you play your cards right you may even be able to make a few bucks selling your rare seeds.

Seed Exchange: If you collect seeds you more than likely will get more seeds than you need for the next 2-3 years from a single plant.  This is a great supply to use for local or mail seed exchanges.  Not only are you supplying someone else with seeds they need but also adding seeds to your collection which you can harvest and repeat the process again.

Growing sprouts: If you are paying for seeds growing sprouts for some plant varieties can be pretty expensive…unless your seeds are free.  This is a good healthy way to use up some of those extra seeds you can’t get rid of any other way.

This year I am planning on harvesting spinach, pea, carrot, and radish seeds (along with my previous onions and cilantro) so stay tuned for more details.

Starting seeds in paper towels

Jun 8, 2010 indoor seed starting, seeds 7 Comments

Most often I start my seeds in a mix of coconut coir and perlite in seeding cells or small containers, though there are occasions when it may be better to start your seeds in a simple paper towel.

Read More …

Giveaway: $1354.83 worth of fresh produce

Dec 19, 2009 giveaway, harvest, seed saving, seeds 45 Comments

Ok there is a little catch, you have to plant the seeds and grow the produce yourself and have perfect weather and unlimited space to do it.  Over the past season I have intentionally harvested more seeds than I needed just for the purpose of sharing them so here is your first chance to get some of CVG’s seed stash.  This should be a good addition to your current selection of seeds or great for a person just starting out next year.

The harvest values were calculated using my most profitable vegetables in your garden post, so numbers are estimated but I tried to be as accurate as possible.  Below are also links to my harvesting techniques of most of the “Self” seeds below (just realized I never wrote up cilantro and radish seed harvesting so expect to see these soon).

CVG’s Seed Stash (Variety Pack)

As always just enter a comment and a winner will be randomly selected using my patented “CVG’s Contest Winner Pickorama” on Jan 1st, 2010.  This contest is open to everyone inside/outside the United States pending any export/import of regulations of sending seeds, which I am still doing some research on.

Planting seeds outside

Apr 12, 2008 germination, outdoor seed starting, seed storing 1 Comment

I always enjoy any seeds I required to start outdoors since they normally thrive with little effort from myself other than the occasional watering and given I live in the rainy Seattle area that does start until mid-June. Even if you have started many of your seeds indoors to extend your growing season some seeds should always start outdoors since they are sensitive to transplant shock. If you have been to a garden center or nursery lately you can get an idea by what types of plants can be transplanted easily. If you are now looking at your seed packets wondering if you should plant these indoors or outdoors here are my suggestions:
Plants that can be started indoors:
Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Celery, Cucumbers, Cukes, Eggplant, Herbs, Kale, Leeks, Lettuce, Muskmelons, Onions (seed), Parsley, Peppers, Swiss Chard, Summer squash, Tomatoes, Zucchini

Plants that should be started outdoors:
Beans, Beets, Carrots, Cilantro, Corn, Cucumbers, Garlic, Muskmelons, Onions (sets), Peas, Potatoes, Radishes, Scallions, Spinach, Turnips, and Winter/Summer squash

You can see from the list there are some plants on both lists which shows that it is definitely possible to transplant some of these sensitive plants, but if you want to avoid the hassle and avoid killing a few plants without requiring surgical precision I would recommend opting for the direct seed planting approach.

Hopefully now you have an idea what you can plant so now comes how to actually do it. Your seed package which will normally give instructions something along the lines of planting the whole package of seeds in a row and thin out to the appropriate spacing. This has been the basic method that many gardeners have been doing for years. This normally leads to thinning 70% of the seedlings or so of the row, which is time consuming and since you can save seeds over a few years this method will definitely be more costly. To avoid this, I plant 1-2 seeds at the proper spacing, if the seeds have been saved for a couple years I add a couple extra seeds since even with proper seed storage the germination rates can decrease over time. After a week or two I simply thin the weakest of the seedlings by chopping them off with a small pair of scissors being careful to not disturb the seedling next to it. If you want to give your larger seeds a little head start, try soaking them in lukewarm water (add inoculants if they are in legume family) overnight before planting them.

Following these steps you should have some great activity in your garden with minimal maintenance and cost.

Hometown seed giveaway #2 (Survival Seeds)

Feb 9, 2010 free, giveaway, seed storing, seeds 46 Comments

Hometown Seeds has again graciously offered up a selection of their non-GMO non hybrid survival seeds.  These are advertised to keep in storage for 5-10 years but also are open pollinated so you can grow them this year, collect the seeds and create your own stockpile in preparation of any future catastrophic food shortage.

They include a selection of the following varieties:

• Lincoln Peas
• Detroit Dark Red Beets
• Kentucky Wonder Brown Pole Bean
• Yolo Wonder Pepper
• Champion Radish
• Lucullus Swiss Chard
• Black Beauty Zucchini
• Waltham Butternut Winter Squash
• Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach
• Scarlet Nantes Carrots
• Long Green Improved Cucumber
• Rutgers Tomato
• Golden Acre Cabbage
• Romaine Paris Island Cos Lettuce
• Golden Bantem Sweet Corn
• Yellow Sweet Spanish Onion

They will be sending me the seeds to no restrictions on where these can be mailed to, so simply add a comment by 2/16/2010 2/19/2010 and I will randomly select a winner in one week.

Update – 2/16/2010

I got the seeds in the mail from Hometown Seeds and I was very surprised in the weight of these seeds.  Well over a lb of seeds in this package.  They come in a sealed lightproof wrapper as you can see below:

Though the seeds would last longer if I kept them in this packaging, though I just had to rip it open to see what was inside (winner’s package will not be opened):

As you can see there are quite a few seeds in this package so you may want to think about who you may want to share these with if you win.