Absolutely! Grow however your circumstances and/or skill levels dictate.
I started with a serious brown thumb. That was primarily a lack of experience/knowledge. This was probably 20+ years ago. I couldn’t have brought a seed to life, much less done so in a way that fostered a healthy and diverse productive garden.
Play around with stuff that’s your speed and don’t let anyone make you feel less for that.
@snarkysteff my serial planting of starts has resulted in so many volunteer plants! A few strawberry starts grew to fill the whole bed. Potatoes pop up everywhere no matter how much I dig. Same with chives, parsley, tomatoes. And don't even get me started on perennials. Rhubarb, asparagus, raspberries are all expanding their territory. I've got three volunteer plum trees.
I'm also late to plant again this year so it's off to buy more starts!
@bmdhacks@snarkysteff Half of pop’s asperagus beds were volunteers. He lived out in the country so no neighbors to fret about and when ever an asperagus volunteer picked a new home he just made it a mini plot. It always cracked me up when ever I visited but man he grew amazing stuff.
@snarkysteff@Kikadee also when you buy seedlings you’re supporting the workers who produce them, generally more or less local to you, and keeping the knowledge of how to do that, at scale, alive in your larger community. Everyone should have the opportunity to raise from seed if they want to, but not the ob.
@snarkysteff That’s just silly. I used to start my own seeds; I have the equipment and knowledge, and I used to enjoy it . But now I have four kids and four animals and too little space and time, and am only putting out single-digit numbers of plants. It makes much more sense to pay one of the nice folks at the farmers market to start the seeds for me. (And also, for most crops, to grow the food for me; but if is nice to have tomatoes and herbs in the backyard.).
@Jonricha Yeah, I think these must be people with big yards or something. I'm not going broke if I drop $50 on seedlings for my patio. I run a side business, cook everything from scratch, am losing weight, etc. I got bigger fires than fucking around with seeds!
@snarkysteff And if you have friends who are gardeners, just see what happens if you ask them for some grown-ass plants or cuttings or seedlings or whatever. You will be awash in amazing opportunities.
@snarkysteff I see a lot of plants being sold at the wrong time. My neighbor planted a lot of lettuce plants ($$$) in Texas in May (already 90 degrees). They died. Growers are making bookoos of money selling plants that have a 90% chance of dying.
@snarkysteff This year, I'm growing all my tomatoes from bought plants for the first time (or I will be, when I buy them). Always grown from seed before, but last year, not that many of the seeds worked out, and then overenthusiastic birds destroyed most of the young plants.
So I went to the garden centre, bought some tomato plants that were just right for my circumstances, and they were the best I've grown. So all of mine this year are coming from the garden centre.
I'll still be growing a bunch of other things from seed. Everyone should do whatever works for them!
Yes -- I had so much disappointment with a few things I did from seed, so it really depends what you're hoping to accomplish and how much time you have for doing it.
With shorter growing seasons in many regions, established plants are a game-changer!
@snarkysteff@RolloTreadway
I use a hydroponics growing system from Amazon and just take seeds from my fav tomatoes, peppers etc. and start indoor and transplant outside. You can have herbs growing in it year round.
@TheJen Some goof on Bluesky. They got muted. They MEAN well, but they are inadvertently shitting on people for using seedlings at all by constantly saying it's foolish to pay $4 for 6 plants when you can get 80 seeds.
Well, sure, but I have a 5x15 balcony and time is of the essence, and I'm not growing seeds in a 600 square-foot apartment with shitty winter light, thanks!
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