Growing a vegetable garden from seeds is a really cheap way to produce your own food, however the price of the seeds themselves will quickly increase if you are hoping for lots of different things to grow. One unusual type of seed packet can be $4 to $6 and if you want to plant a lot in the spring you might need 15 to 30 of them. If you don’t have much money for gardening, and this is especially true for people new to it who are trying to find out what grows best where they live, getting seeds for nothing or for very little money is what will decide if you have a small test area or a completely full garden.
Luckily, you can get free or cheap seeds more easily than many gardeners think. Lots of ways to get a good collection of seeds without spending a lot of money are available, from events in the local community and seed ‘libraries’, to big sales of what’s left at the end of the season and keeping seeds from plants you already have.
1. Local Seed Libraries
Seed libraries are based on a really easy idea: people borrow seeds, plant the plants they grow from those seeds, and then save some seeds from what they’ve harvested to share with other gardeners. In the United States and Canada, lots of public libraries, community gardens, and non-profit groups – hundreds in fact – are now running these seed libraries. Seeds from these programs are commonly suited to your area because gardeners from the same climate have saved them. And to find a seed library near you, your best bet is to get in touch with your local public library or agricultural extension office.
2. Community Seed Swaps
Gardeners in an area get together at seed swaps to trade seeds they have too many of. Usually happening in late winter, just before you’d start planting, they’re a way to get a wider selection of seeds for free and chat with other gardeners who know what they are doing. Lots of garden clubs, Master Gardener groups, and community gardens put on swaps every year or twice a year. And gardeners in the countryside, where it might be hard to actually go to a swap, now have more chances to participate because of seed swap groups on the internet.
3. Saving Seeds From Current Harvests
If you want to get seeds for free in the most environmentally friendly way, use seeds from plants you’re already growing in your garden. You can gather seeds from tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas, lettuce, and lots of herbs; then dry them and keep them until next year when you’re ready to plant. For collecting seeds, open-pollinated and heirloom types are best, as their babies will be very like the original plant. You shouldn’t bother saving seeds from ‘F1’ hybrids (that’s what the F1 on the packet means) because you won’t know what sort of plant they will grow into.
4. End-of-Season Clearance Sales
When the main time for planting is over, you’ll generally find seeds at garden centers and hardware stores reduced in price by half to three quarters. Seeds you get on sale in July or August will still be good to use next spring, particularly if you keep them in a cool, dry place all winter. This is a brilliant way to buy seeds for the foods you grow regularly, things like tomatoes, beans, squash, and lots of frequently chosen flower types, because they’re usually a lot cheaper.
5. Free Seed Programs From Seed Companies
Lots of the big seed businesses will send you seed samples for nothing, often to people who are new to buying from them or as part of competitions on social media. A number of them also throw in an extra seed packet with anything you buy. Then there are those that hand out little sample packs of brand new kinds of seeds, hoping gardeners will grow them and give feedback. The best way to hear about these deals as they pop up during the year is to subscribe to the seed companies’ email lists.
6. Dollar Stores and Discount Retailers
You can find simple seed packets for vegetables and flowers at dollar stores, and very often those seeds come from the same companies that sell to garden centers, but for much less money. Though you won’t have as many different choices as in a fancy catalog, things you grow a lot like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, zucchini, marigolds, sunflowers, are commonly available for a dollar or under a dollar a packet. For those popular types, cheaper seeds will usually sprout about as well as more expensive brands.
7. Winter Sowing With Collected Seeds
With winter sowing, you plant seeds in containers you’d normally recycle – like milk jugs, leftovers containers, or plastic bottles – and just leave them outside all winter. As the weather gets warmer in spring, the seeds sprout on their own. It’s great for seeds you’ve saved yourself from the garden or gotten at seed exchanges, and you don’t need grow lights, heating mats, or a place to start them inside. Cold-resistant vegetables, flowers that come back year after year, and plants originally from around here are especially good choices for this method.
8. Grocery Store Produce
You can actually get seeds from some of the fresh food you buy at the store to grow in your garden. Fully ripe tomatoes, peppers, winter squash, and even dried beans you’re planning to eat all have seeds inside that will grow. Often store bought fruit and vegetables are hybrids (which means the plants they grow won’t be exactly the same as the ones you got the seeds from) but using seeds from them is a free way to try out growing something new. Beans and lentils from the sections of the store where you buy foods by weight are particularly good for this, as they sprout really easily and give you a good crop.
Key Takeaway
You don’t have to shell out a lot of money at those fancy seed places to get seeds for planting. Seed libraries, getting together with other gardeners to exchange seeds, collecting seeds from your own plants, end of season sales, dollar stores and even the fruits and vegetables you buy at the supermarket can all give you seeds that will grow. In fact, by using a few of these options, gardeners can grow lots of different things and have a good harvest without spending much, or any, money.
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