Seeds or Seedlings: Which Should You Start Your Garden With?

It is one of the first decisions you make and it is more of a fork in the road than people expect, because seed and seedlings ask completely different things of you. Neither one is the right answer. It depends on how much time you have got and how much you mind waiting.

What you get out of seed

Seed is cheaper, and the gap is bigger than it looks once you are doing a whole bed. A packet costs about what one punnet does and it plants a lot more than one punnet will.

The bigger thing is choice. The seed rack carries varieties you will simply never see as seedlings, because seedling growers stick to the ones that sell in volume. If you want a particular carrot, or a variety that actually suits our summers, seed is usually the only way you are getting it.

You also control the whole thing from the start. What it was grown in, what went on it, how hard it was pushed. That matters if you are gardening organically, and it matters if you have ever bought a seedling that looked great and then sulked for a month.

What seed asks of you in return

Patience, mostly. Seed needs the soil at the right temperature and the right dampness for a stretch of time, and it is not always obvious when you have got it wrong until nothing has come up and you have lost three weeks.

Parsley takes up to three weeks on its own. Snapdragons want a fortnight to three. If you are the sort who checks it every day and then digs one up to see what is going on, seed is going to test you.

What you get out of seedlings

Speed, and one less thing to get wrong. A seedling has already survived the part where most things fail, so you skip the germination lottery entirely and you are eating or picking weeks earlier.

For anyone starting out, that matters more than the cost does. A first garden that produces something is a garden you keep going with. A first garden where nothing came up is usually the last one.

What seedlings cost you

Money, and range. They are dearer per plant and the choice is limited to whatever is common enough to be worth growing in bulk.

They are also more fragile than they look at the point of planting. A seedling is a plant that has already built a root system and you are about to disturb it, so it wants handling gently, watering in properly, and preferably a cool part of the day rather than the middle of one.

So which one

• Short on time or new to it. Seedlings. Get something growing, get the win, work up from there.
• Doing a whole bed, or chasing a particular variety. Seed. The cost and the choice both swing hard that way once you are past a punnet or two.
• Things that hate being moved. Seed, sown where it is going to grow. Coriander, carrots and most root vegetables all resent a transplant.
• Honestly, both. Most people end up running seed for the things that are easy and slow, and seedlings for the things they want producing sooner.

Come and have a look

The garden centre at the shop has the seed rack and the seedlings side by side, which makes this a much easier decision in person than it is on a screen. Tell us what you are trying to grow and when you want to be picking it, and we will point you at the right one.

Shop related products

• Brunnings Seed Raising Mix 5L. Finer than potting mix, which is what small seed needs to get away.
• Brunnings Propagating Sand 5L. For anything that rots if it sits wet.
• D.T. Brown Seeds Carrot All Season 2000 Seed Pack. Direct sown, because carrots will not be moved.
• Seasol seaweed concentrate 1L. Water seedlings in with it to help them settle.
• Brunnings Garden Compost with Seaweed 25L. Through the bed before either one goes in.

The full seed rack is D.T. Brown, and there is more in the garden centre range.

Read next

• What to Plant in Autumn in a South Australian Veggie Patch
• Five Flowers to Grow for Colour in Winter
• A Beginner's Guide to Building Good Soil for Your Vegetable Garden

I still plant more seed than I have room for, every time, and then act surprised.

Cheers,
Candeece