Starting from Scratch: A Beginner's Guide to Buying Seeds & Transplants
- Makensie Paxton
- Jan 27
- 4 min read
Reflecting on my first post, "How can beginner gardeners take their first step towards a successful garden", the second task that I recommend for all beginner gardeners is to make a list of the food that you would like to grow. If you haven't already done so, go ahead and do this. Keep in mind, this list can be altered to match your budget, the layout of your garden, your climate, and the amount of time you plan to dedicate to your garden. As a beginner gardener, it's okay if you only want to try to grow a few plants this season. You can always expand in the fall or the next spring season. When creating your list, its important to think about the purpose of your garden. If you haven't noticed yet, most decisions that you make for your garden, comes back to the purpose of it. In terms of buying seeds and transplants, its important to determine if your main focus is to save money or if you're only concerned with growing the best food for yourself or others.
Reading this far, you may be thinking to yourself "Okay, I know what seeds are, but what are these transplants she keeps mentioning". When a gardener is planting in their garden, they are either directly sowing (planting) seeds into the soil or they are planting something called a transplant. A transplant is a plant that has already been established elsewhere and is being moved into your garden to be planted in the soil. There are two ways to obtain a transplant; purchasing a transplant from your local garden center, Lowe's, Tractor Supply, etc... or starting your seeds indoors until they are ready to be transplanted outside.
Pictured here are Strawberry Transplants (Live Plants). As you can tell, the plant is already established rather than being a seed. In terms of planting, these individual plants would be separated from the pot and planted into your soil.
Going back to the list of foods that you would like to grow, the next step is figuring out what plants are going to thrive in your climate. Determining this is going to be based on individual hardiness zones and your area's climate. When you are going through your list, I suggest doing a quick Google search to see if that particular food will thrive in your area. After you have discovered what you are able to grow, the next step is to determine whether to purchase that plant as seeds or as a transplant. I have included a chart below that gives a general overview of whether you should directly sow the seeds (plant directly into soil) or if they are recommended to be transplanted. Transplanting could mean either you start the seeds indoors or you buy the transplant from the store/ garden center. I must add, buying transplants can be costly depending on the plant, so keep this in mind if the purpose of your garden is to save money. It's also important to note that some of these plants can be started indoors rather than directly sowed, but I tried make these recommendations based off beginner gardening.
Plant | Method of Planting |
Tomatoes | Start Indoors/ Transplant |
Cucumbers | Direct Sow Seeds |
Peppers | Start Indoors/ Transplant |
Melons | Start Indoors/ Transplant |
Carrots | Direct Sow Seeds |
Onions | Direct Sow Onion Sets |
Spinach | Direct Sow Seeds |
Lettuce | Direct Sow Seeds |
Herbs | Start Indoors/ Transplant |
Beans | Direct Sow Seeds |
Strawberries | Transplant |
Garlic | Direct Sow Cloves |
Potatoes | Direct Sow (must have eye) |
Blueberries | Transplant |
Zucchini | Direct Sow Seeds |
Squash | Direct Sow Seeds |
*If you are wanting to purchase a plant that is not listed, please reach out to info@simplymakensie.com for more guidance.
Purchasing Seeds:
Seeds can be purchased virtually anywhere. When purchasing seeds, you may notice a few key words on the packet. I am going to list them out below and what they mean.
Organic: Grown without synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, or genetically modified organisms (GMO)
Non- GMO: Not genetically modified.
Heirloom: These seeds come from open-pollination (natural). This means that each year, these seeds will produce the same plant. Buying Heirloom seeds are important if you want to learn to save your seeds once your plants end their cycle and plant them again next season.
Hybrid: These are seeds that have been created by cross pollinating plants. While you can technically replant them next year after seed saving, they may not produce the same plant genetically.
On the back of each seed packet, you will find specific information regarding germination, light requirements, when to transplant, etc.
Here is a list of places that I have personally purchased seeds from:
Walmart
Amazon
Purchasing Transplants:
Just as seeds, transplants can be purchased essentially anywhere that you may find garden supplies. Some transplants may come with multiple plants within the same pots, while others may be single plants. It's important to remember that transplants are going to have a higher initial cost compared to seeds. In the past, I have used transplants from Bonnie Plants, that I found at either Walmart, Lowes, or Tractor Supply.
Once you have bought your seeds, you might feel a little overwhelmed at what to do next. In my next post, I will going over the ways in which you can start your seeds indoors and what that process may look like.
Until then,
Wishing you green thumbs and sunny days!
-Makensie
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