Why go through the hassle of starting your own vegetable seeds indoors when you can buy plant starts from the store? It is more work to start your own vegetable seeds, but here are six good reasons to try it:
It Extends the Growing Season:
In some areas, the growing season isn’t long enough for a particular vegetable you’d like to grow, so starting your seeds indoors (before it’s safe to plant outdoors) is a way to effectively extend the growing season.
It Saves You Money:
Another reason to start seeds indoors is to save money! It’s around the same price to buy a packet of seeds (with the possibility of many plants) as it is to buy one plant of the same vegetable already started.
You Get to Control the Environment:
f you want organic plants, you know for sure you have them if you’re growing them yourself. You know what kind of soil you’ve used, what kind of compost, etc. You (most often) don’t know where the plants came from nor their growing conditions when you buy them at the store.
You Get More Options:
If you’d like to try your hand at some exotic, heirloom, hard-to-find, or otherwise non-mainstream, you might not be able to find them as plants. This is where combing seed catalogs comes in handy. Get a packet of those rare varieties and start them yourself at home.
You Get Tougher, More Hearty Plants:
Generally, growers grow plants in conditions that promote fast plant growth (which, in turn, gives them a bigger profit faster). What’s good for fast plant growth (warm, cushy, bright environment) doesn’t necessarily make strong, tough plants. It actually makes plants thinner and weaker.
Plants grown in your home are subject to imperfect conditions (your house temperature may fluxuate, you may forget to water your seedlings or over or under water them, etc.) In the long run, these less than perfect conditions make stronger plants.
You Can Experiment With Your Own Seeds:
Some people also start seeds indoors because they’ve saved seeds from their plants the previous year and want to use those seeds to grow plants for this year’s garden.
Even if you’re not totally ready to start all your plants from seeds, start small and try a few. You can always add to it next year. And who knows? You might actually like it!