Free Vegetable Seeds
12 years ago cheap, free, seed exchange, seed saving, seeds
Free Vegetable Seeds
- Ask your coworkers: Are any of your coworkers gardeners? Setup a seed swap at lunch and/or see if they want to go in on a seed order and split up some seed packets for varieties you only need a few seeds.
- Harvest your own seeds: I typically grow at least one or two cilantro and pea plants to collect seeds from for the next year . Notice your neighbor has some neglected plants going to seed? Ask if you can get some they may even look at this as free weeding (important part is to ask though)
- Get seeds from the grocery store: Before putting those vegetables in the compost bin, set the seeds aside to let them dry and you got some free seeds. The riper the fruit/vegetable the better results you may have on fertility here so shortest time between picking at getting up for sale will yield the best results. So look for local fruits and vegetables or even better visit your local farmers market.
- Get free vegetable seeds from the US Government: Have a little experiment or study you want to conduct and report the results on your blog? Check out the National Plant Germplasm System from the US Department of Agriculture. Within a database of over 10,000 species of plants you are sure to find some vegetables for your experiments. Even shipping is included though can be time consuming to find what you are looking for.
- Check your spice rack: In many cases you can plant seeds from your spice rack. Just look for words like “raw” anything that has been “roasted” will probably not yield positive results. Some ideas, mustard seed, dill seed, coriander, poppy seed, celery seed. If your spice rack is lacking you can pay a few cents buy a teaspoon of organic spices in bulk, last time I bought dill seeds got about 100 seeds for $0.05 which is a significant saving over paying $2-3 for an envelope of seeds.
- Seed swap web sites: Below I have listed a few links where you can share seeds with others. This is a great way to find some heirloom seeds you might not be able to find in stores/seed catalogs. In many cases people will offer seeds for free by just sending a SASE (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope) Just remember to pay it forward when you come into a plethora of seeds yourself after this years harvest.
If this is all seems like too much effort you can just buy some very inexpensive seeds online where you can check out some of my personal favorites in my “Cheap vegetable seeds” post
Seeds from WinterSown
14.9 years ago cheap, seed exchange, seed saving, seeds
I know many of your probably already know about WinterSown but for those of you that have not you must check them out. This is the first year I have requested seeds from them and I they completely blew away my expectations. By simply sending them an self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) and an optional donation they will send back some seeds of your choosing. I have gotten tired of my boring tomatoes I have been growing from the limited selections at local nursery and garden center so I chose the following: Husky Red Cherry, Persey Tomato, Red Brandywine, New Yorker, Mini Gold, Green Zebra, Tommy Toes, and they also sent me some Parsley which was not on my list though I was planning on growing this year.
They also included a pamphlet (mirrored) providing a long but not very labor intensive method of how to save your own tomato seeds which was yet another added bonus. I will be sure to save some seeds and send many of my extras back their way at the end of the season.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, tomato plants, vegetables
