Don't make these seed buying mistakes

By JM Davis

Gardening, Growing Food & Medicine

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Avoid These 9 Garden Seed Buying Blunders!

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By avoiding these nine garden seeds buying mistakes, you’ll save time, money, and headaches.

It’s that time of year when garden seed catalogs are in your mailbox and inbox. Some are fancy, with colorful pictures and glossy inserts. While others are simple black and white. There are so many varieties to choose from. Then when you hop online to your favorite seeds companies, you’ll find more varieties, terminology, and seeds.

I’m sure you feel like a seeder hoarder sometimes. I know I do. You’ll avoid these mistakes if you can separate the emotion of buying and the reality of what you’re buying. Maybe it’s impossible, but at least beware of the following nine mistakes when buying garden seeds.

1. Not knowing what garden seeds you already have in stock.

If you don’t know what seeds you have, how are you going to know what seeds you need to buy? Organize your seeds, then go through them each year. Get rid of seeds, you’re never going to use, and make a simple list of seeds you want.

Now when you look through catalogs and such, you know exactly what seeds you’re looking for. The list will help you stay focused and save you money, not buying every seed.

2. Not knowing how much seed you need.

You may not know the exact space you’re going to plant. However, you need to know two things. One, if you’re going to succession plant. Meaning you’re going to plant more than one crop. We plant several crops of peas each season, so I buy tons of peas. The second thing you need to know is how big a plant will get.

Depending on the size and spacing of the plants, plus how many plantings you’ll do will determine how much seeds you will need. If you get too many seeds, you’ll have extra. If you have way too many seeds, you’re wasting money. If you don’t have enough seeds you’ll have to do without if you can’t find more seeds in a timely manner.

3. Not knowing what type of seeds you’re looking for.

When you don’t know what type of seed you want, you’ll just look at seeds and buy whatever looks good. You should look for non-gmo or organic. Organic makes it non-gmo as well, but non-gmo doesn’t mean the seeds were created without pesticides. It may not be feasible for small seed companies to get certified organic. You want heirloom or older seeds types and open pollinated. Open pollinated and heirloom seeds make for the best seed saving.

Stay away from genetically engineered, treated, and hybrids. A hybrid seed will not save true to the fruit, because it’s hybrid. Yes, you can save them and get some cool results, but you don’t know what you’ll get. Make sure you are not buying treated seeds.

If someone says they don’t sell treated seeds or genetically modified seeds, they haven’t been to stores like I have. The package will declare the seeds treated and inedible to humans and animals. If you can’t eat the seeds or feed to animals because of poison, where do you think the poison goes when you plant theses seed? Right into your dirt, into your plants, and into you. The treated seeds can come in colors like pink, orange, and purple. Anytime a seed is not a natural seed color, suspect it’s a treated seed.

By knowing what type of seeds you’re looking for, you can skip all the types of seeds you don’t want. This saves you time and allows you to focus on the seeds you want.

4. Buying because you fell in love with the pictures and images.

This is a huge mistake. On packets, in catalogs, and online, you see perfect pictures. Your goal is to achieve results matching the picture. You are blinded by the images and don’t look at the package information.

Remember, they take the pictures to make the plant and fruit look perfect. Your growing situation will be different than the seeds companies.

5. Not reading the packaging and grabbing or quickly ordering what you think you want.

Not looking at the seed package results from being blinded by the pictures that have enticed you. Regarding the variety, you lack knowledge of its growth in your region, its growing period, and other details. You grab or order the seeds and don’t realize your mistake until you’re growing.

Reading the seed packages or descriptions is extremely important. It’s the only way you will know all the information about the seed and variety, from growth time, planting instructions, harvesting, etc.

6. Buying from large seed companies.

This is one of my pet peeves. When you only buy from large and well-known seed companies, you are not helping the seed industry. Instead, you are becoming part of the status quo of not knowing where your seeds come from. Many large seed companies don’t know who is growing their seeds. It encompasses large-scale business and agriculture. You also need to be more mindful about the type of seeds you are getting.

When you purchase from smaller seed companies, conservatories, and such, you are helping keep heirloom and open pollinated seeds alive. You will be able to talk to the companies and find out more about the growers they get their seeds from. This gives you more control over your food.

There are seed banks housed in places like Cornell University, where they collect seed genetics. It makes it so they are in charge of the seeds, not individuals. Also, when you buy from smaller seed companies and co-ops, you help small businesses thrive.

7. Procrastinating buying your seeds.

Who knew seeds would run out? Well, they do. When you wait too long to buy your seeds, the stores run out of the most popular varieties. Plus, online companies run out of seeds as well. As people take more charge of their food, seed companies cannot keep up.

This week, go through your seeds, make your list and order your seeds. You don’t want to have to do without because you didn’t order early enough. Plus, if you procrastinate buying your seeds, your season may get off to a slow start. Buy your seeds now and wait for the season to grow.

8. Not knowing or thinking about your growing season time frame.

When you don’t know your growing zone, how long your season is, or when the warmer and cooler times are during growing season, you can buy the wrong seeds. Some seeds need longer to grow. Like my dry beans. They take 100 days to grow and then another 20 or so days to dry on the plant.

Knowing how long your season is and when the temperatures change allows you to gauge when to plant which seeds. Spinach is more cold weather. This may mean an early crop or late crop, depending on where you live.

Just because the plant may take longer than your growing season, you can use grow season extenders. Things like tunnels, greenhouse, starting inside or finishing inside. As long as you know what you’re dealing with, you’ll have more success.

9 Buying seeds, just to have seeds, even though you don’t like the food at the other side.

If you’re a seed hoarder, this one may be tough to break. When you buy seeds just for the sake of having seeds, you’re wasting space and money. Plus, you might acquire seeds that won’t grow, are unsuitable, or are foods you dislike. This means wasted seeds at the minimal.

Gardening season is just right around the corner, if you haven’t already started. Make sure you have your seeds in order and new ones on the way.

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