by Kriss Erickson

Created on: June 04, 2008

I've gown vegetables ever since my mother caught me nibbling baby carrots from the vegetable patch beside the back door. She said if I was going to eat her plants, I may as well learn to grow them myself. I was thrilled that, in the 1960s, I could use my $1.00 allowance to buy twenty packs of vegetable seeds. If my lettuce seeds produced even a head or two of lettuce, I'd already paid for all the seeds, since organic loose-leaf lettuce cost about fifty cents a head back then.

What about now? Does the price of seeds and/or plants still allow a person to save money on groceries? Absolutely! Each year from late May to early October, my grocery list is much shorter. I grow most of the vegetables and fruit my family eats in the summer and fall.

ADDING THE COSTS

Fresh vegetable seeds, packed for the current year, cost anywhere from 75 cents to three or four dollars a pack, depending on the variety, amount of seeds, whether the seeds are organic or not, and the form the seeds come in. For example, a regular sized pack of radish seeds, packed for 2008, costs anywhere from 75 cents to nearly two dollars, depending on the brand of seed. If you have a coupon or find a store sale, regular packs of common vegetables like radishes, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, carrots and cabbage can be as inexpensive as fifty cents.

Larger packs of seeds cost more, of course but if you compare the price per ounce you may save by buying a larger pack of seeds if you have a large area to plant. Organic seeds generally cost from around $2.00 to $4.00 per pack, again, depending on variety and size of the package. Finally, some small seeds, like carrots, beets, radishes and onions, come in seed tape form. While seed tapes are generally more expensive than plain seed packets (again, look out for sales!), I like to use them when I can, since there is no need to thin the plants.

If you are going to plant your seeds directly into the garden, the only other costs you need to consider are any soil builders like peat moss, sand, compost or fertilizer that you would like to work into the soil before you plant. If you would like to start your plants indoors, add the price of planting pots, potting soil and fertilizer to your total.

If a pack of radish seeds costs 75 cents, and you sow these quick-growing plants into your garden in the spring, in about twenty days you will get at least a hundred radishes. More, again, depending on the number of seeds in the pack. Radishes sell in my area for fifty cents for a

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