Around here, it is time to plant our cool-season vegetables: parsley, radishes, carrots, celery, beets, onions, mustard, salad greens….
For years and years, I would buy the seeds in little packets at garden centers or home improvement stores, and sometimes I bought seeds online or from catalogs. But since moving to the country, I have discovered a wonderful alternative:
Feed Store Seeds!
For only a quarter (and I thought a quarter, .25, didn’t buy anything these days), I can get a scoopful (close to 2 Tablespoons) of seeds. It is much more seed than I received in the $1.99-2.99 packets.
At our feed store yesterday, along with the goat feed, chicken feed, rabbit feed, oyster shells for the chickens, and mineral salt block (which tastes good, by the way; my curiosity got the best of me)….I bought mustard seeds, shallot onion bulbs, beet seeds, carrot seeds, green onion bulbs, and two other types of seeds that I can’t remember right now…for only $2.00 total!
There were enough seeds, along with a portion of my overflowing oregano, to share with my neighbor when she came to let her children slide down our hill with mine (No, not in the snow, Silly, this is the Gulf Coast! We slide on cardboard boxes down the grass).
If you have a local feed store, you may want to check them out for seeds, too. Mine carries mostly veggies, only parsley for herbs, and lots of types of zinnias (they must have a passion for zinnias, as I do!). They also have potatoes, garlic bulbs, and onion slips in season.
You can’t be as picky about the variety of vegetables (they only had two types of carrots, for example), but they do carry whatever does well in the area, so that’s fine with me. I simply want a fresh-from-the-ground carrot, never mind its proper name!
Lori Seaborg
the idea of buying seeds at the feed store. I think I remember, now that you mentioned it, seeds at our feed store. I will have to check this out more.