Avoid These Seed Buying Mistakes

until you start saving your own buying seeds is a necessary part of gardening and until you get to the point that you're an expert at buying seeds you're going to be making mistakes join me today as I cover 12 common seed buying mistakes [Music] thank you [Music] hi I'm Gardener Scott and over the decades I have bought thousands of seed packets in front of me are four orders that just arrived this week from Park seed from Baker Creek heirloom seeds from Seed Savers exchange and from Botanical interests and even though I always try to cut back every year I buy more seeds and when I buy those seeds I'm trying to avoid the mistakes that I have made over and over again the first of the mistakes is just looking at the package just seeing the picture and buying the seeds purely because of the picture on the packet when we see the pretty pictures it Sparks something in just about every Gardener we think we can recreate that in our garden and so we pick up that package from the display at the store throw it in our basket check out and that isn't until we get home that we might even look at the back of the package to see if we can even grow it in our garden in the first place try to avoid buying just on looks do that extra little bit of research by just reading the seed package and seeing if it really is something you want in your garden a common mistake that many gardeners make is thinking that cheap seed is Bad Seed assuming that to get higher quality seed you need to spend more money but that's just not true this is a packet of seeds from American seeds I got it last year at my dollar store they were selling four packets for a dollar a bargain and I've done side by side growing with different seeds and it doesn't matter how much you spend you can expect to get good germination and good growth so if you want to save some money and you find a packet of something you want to grow go ahead and buy it you don't need to wait to spend more but of course being able to find a lot of seed and not spend a lot of money means that you might make another mistake which is buying too many seeds and I am so guilty of this especially when I go to the dollar store and if they're selling for for a dollar or four for a dollar 25 I want to get as many seeds as I can to save as much money as I can and invariably I buy seed packets that I don't need and some of those seed packets never find a spot in my garden it's okay I can give them away to fellow Gardener friends but even though I'm saving money in the first place sometimes it's questionable if you can save money in the long run when you just buy more seeds than you need have you made this mistake I'm guessing that you have it's buying a new packet of seeds when you already have the same seeds at home here's a package of yellow crook neck squash from seeds of change here's a package of yellow crook neck squash from territorial seed here's a package of yellow crook neck squash from True Leaf Market and of course because it was such a bargain here's a package of yellow crook neck squash from American Seed did I got four for a dollar so often we'll see a sale either online or in the store and we know it's a variety we grow so why not get more seeds before you know it you have so many duplicates that you'll never be able to use all the seeds a seed buying mistake that a lot of new gardeners make is waiting too long to buy their seeds all of these packets that I just got this week I ordered because I'm worried that the seed companies might actually run out of some of the specific varieties that I want to grow and some of what I've looked for is already out of stock in my favorite nurseries so by early if you can we see all the big displays at the big box stores for months and months and think that they'll always be there when it's time for us to grab that packet and put it into our garden even though it's months before I'm going to put these seeds in my garden I've got the seeds now because they're part of my garden plan and I want to make sure that I get them before the companies run out to avoid this next gardening mistake enlist the help of one of your Gardener friends the mistake is that too often we buy our seeds individually by ourselves and without even knowing it our neighbor on the other side of the fence is buying the same seeds well talk to your friends share your seeds starting lists you'll probably discover that you're each planning on growing some of the same plants so go in together buy those seed packets and split the cost and split the seeds so many of these seed packets have seeds that you'll never be able to grow there's just too many of them might as well share them with a gardener friend and if you don't have that friend yet this is a great excuse to meet your neighbor and offer to split the cost of the seeds if you want to save seeds at the end of the season a mistake is buying hybrid seeds in the first place if you buy hybrid seeds and plant them and then save the seeds from that plant you're not going to get what you're looking for instead you need to look for open pollinated varieties and heirloom varieties of seeds you can grow those plants and then save the seeds and get the same plants in The Following season you won't always see it identified on the package so like this Burpee package of Genovese basil doesn't say anywhere on here that it's open pollinated or heirloom but it doesn't say that it's hybrid if it doesn't say hybrid on the seed package you can expect that you can save the seeds at the end of the season and save yourself money from never having to buy seed packets again new gardeners and gardeners with just a small space can get by with buying a packet here and a packet there but for those of us with bigger Gardens and grander aspirations we're buying a lot more seeds and the mistake that's next is not buying your seed in bulk and there are a couple aspects to this one being that a lot of companies will give you a choice of how many seeds you're going to purchase from a single packet to half a pound or more and the more seeds you buy the more money you're going to save you might also take a look at getting all of your seeds from the same Seed Company even if you're not buying in those large amounts because many companies will give you a discount with the more seeds that you buy or they might give you free shipping when you reach a certain threshold of a number of C need packets so take a look at bulk buying from a single source and especially if you want a lot of a particular variety find one of those sources that will give you a cheaper rate with the more seeds that you buy another mistake that too many of us make is buying seeds that we're not going to be able to plant in this growing season in my region I need to start my tomato seeds indoors by the middle of April but go to the store and I still see tomato seeds being sold in the seed displays and I still see people buying packets of tomato seeds long after the window of opportunity to start those seeds indoors so I'll have no chance growing those seeds in their Garden for this year which means they'll have to save the seeds for next year and by then they might not even want to grow that variety again so be focused on the time frame of when you can start your seeds and put that into your buying decision and that ties into the mistake of not finding out about the plants that you want to grow not doing the research into the seed often we can look at the back of a seed packet and it will give us much of the information we need but not always you need to know how long your growing season is and you need to know how long it's going to take the plant to reach the point of harvest and if it's going to take longer for the plant to reach Harvest then you have time to grow that plant then you're wasting your effort getting those seeds in the first place and unless you've done that little bit of research to see if that seed will fit in your garden it's a mistake to buy it another common mistake is not comparing costs between seed companies before you place your order it's easy to go to a catalog and go online and see that they're inexpensive seed packets and you place your order without realizing that you still have to pay the shipping costs which in some cases are surprisingly High you go to another company that charges more first seed packets but they might have free shipping and in the long run that's the less expensive option you should consider and most companies will charge more for certified organic seed but you might not need organic seed you can get along fine with just regular generic seed that doesn't have that certification look at those kind of factors and Compare costs between one company and another and especially if you're buying in bulk you can have some big savings a seed buying mistake that often causes some of these other seed buying mistakes is not having a gardening plan for your growing season if you just randomly buy seed packets there's going to be mistakes along the way but if you have a plan knowing what plant you're going to grow and knowing when they're going to go into your garden it makes the whole process of seed buying that much easier and you can avoid buying too many seeds and you'll have the time to shop for the best cost and it's possible that you can make the seed buying process almost mistake free if you want to learn more about Garden planning well then watch one of these videos next I'm Gardner Scott enjoy gardening [Music]

Channel: Gardener Scott

Views: 132,622

Keywords: gardener scott, gardner scott, gardening for beginners, how to buy seeds, seed buying, seed buying mistakes, choose seeds, how to choose seeds

Id: Ao8AiWB-aa8

Length: 12min 16sec (736 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 04 2023