Standing in the produce aisle, it’s easy to wonder why you’d pay a premium for seed garlic when an ordinary bulb of garlic may cost only a dollar or two. After all, garlic isn’t normally grown from botanical seed—you break a bulb apart and plant individual cloves, which makes grocery store garlic look like an…
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Can Growing Garlic Really Save Money Over Buying It at the Grocery Store?
Garlic seems like the perfect frugal garden crop: bury a clove, wait several months, and pull up an entirely new bulb. But when grocery-store garlic is relatively inexpensive, does growing garlic actually save enough money to justify giving it garden space? The answer depends heavily on what you pay for planting stock, how many bulbs…
7 Garden Plants Worth Saving Seeds From Instead of Buying Them Again Next Year
Gardeners routinely pull up plants in fall and throw away something they’ll pay money to replace a few months later: seeds. One healthy tomato, bean plant, pepper, or flower can potentially provide enough seed to start multiple plants next season, making saving garden seeds one of the simplest ways to trim next year’s gardening budget….
Is Starting From Seed Still Cheaper Than Buying Plants? Let’s Do the Math
A $4 tomato plant doesn’t sound expensive until you need six tomatoes, four peppers, a tray of lettuce, basil, broccoli, and a few flowers. Suddenly, the spring garden-center trip costs $60 before anything has gone into the ground, making a $3 packet containing dozens of seeds look like an obvious bargain. But the real seed…
We Compared Dollar Store Seeds With $5 Premium Seeds — Does Paying More Matter?
Walk into a dollar store in late winter and you might find vegetable seed packets selling for a fraction of what the glossy garden catalog charges. Put a 50-cent packet beside a $5 packet of seemingly similar tomato, lettuce, or cucumber seeds, and it’s reasonable to wonder what you’re actually getting for that extra $4.50….
Before Buying Cheap Seeds From an Overseas Seller, Check These USDA Rules
A packet of unusual flower or vegetable seeds for $2 can look like one of the easiest gardening bargains you’ll find online. But if the seller is shipping those seeds from another country, you’re not simply ordering inexpensive garden supplies—you may legally be importing plant material into the United States. The USDA’s Animal and Plant…
Those “Rare Blue Strawberry” Seeds Online Look Amazing — But Do They Actually Exist?
Scroll through online seed listings long enough and you’re almost guaranteed to encounter something that makes an ordinary garden look boring: electric-blue strawberries, rainbow roses, purple watermelons, or another spectacular plant you’ve never seen at a nursery. Photos of so-called blue strawberry seeds are especially convincing because the fruit often looks just realistic enough to…
5 Red Flags an Online Seed Seller May Not Be Legitimate
That packet of rare blue tomatoes or rainbow-colored roses may cost only $4.99, but wasting five dollars isn’t the biggest risk when buying questionable seeds online. You could spend weeks tending empty pots, receive something completely different from what was advertised, or unknowingly order seeds that don’t comply with U.S. import requirements. Online marketplaces and…
Received Seeds You Never Ordered? USDA Says Don’t Put Them in the Ground
Finding an unexpected packet of seeds in your mailbox might seem like a gardener’s version of free money. Before you scatter those mystery seeds into a flower bed or tuck them into a pot, however, the U.S. Department of Agriculture wants you to stop. The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service says non-compliant seeds,…
A $3 Packet of Seeds Can Turn Into a $100 Mistake If You Buy the Wrong Kind Online
A $3 packet of seeds can look like the ultimate gardening bargain, especially when an online listing promises an unusual flower, giant vegetable, or rare plant that local garden centers never seem to carry. But that tiny packet can create a much bigger headache if the seller misrepresents the seeds, ships them from another country…