It’s so tempting to buy startsI get it.
But before you buy, you should seriously consider growing the following vegetables from seed.
It might mean waiting a little longer for your crops, but your yields will likely be better.
Carrots
Carrot seeds are small and cheap.
Thats $14 for starts vs. $3 for a packet of seeds.
Not to mention: When you buy carrot starts, each cell holds a ton of individual carrot seedlings.
You cant simply plunk a whole cell of starts into the ground.
Water, or let the rain do the work for you.
Youll have to thin the seeds, sure, but it’s a much easier endeavor.
First, beet and radish seeds are a lot bigger and easier to handle than carrots.
This means you wont have to thin them later, and both beets and radishes germinate easily.
You want 10 or 15.
By planting several seeds weekly, youll have radishes or beets that are ready for harvest week after week.
Corn
Corn has insufferably shallow roots and is annoying tall.
Which is silly, because corn is a huge seed, and has incredibly high germination rates.
Even better, you plant it late in the season, so youre unlikely to miss the timing.
Plus, most nurseries only carry standard sweet yellow corn.
With seeds you get access to more interesting varieties like Glass Gem or popping corn.
Some bean purveyors likeRancho Gordoencourage it, allowing you to sign up to test-grow their beans.
For a shipping fee, theyll send you seed beans every year.
Cucumbers
For years I purchased cucumber starts, to get a jump on the season.
And then my cucumbers did nothing for the first few weeks, which was always disappointing.
This is because cucumbers hate their roots being disturbed.
When you transplant them, they go into shock for a few weeks, and stall.
Theyll recover, but in those few weeks, you could have grown the starts from seed.
Lettuce is easy to germinate, and sprinkling in some seeds every week starting in spring just makes sense.
Let the rain do the hard work.
Lettuce is great to grow in blocks in your garden, or grow it between other plants.
