seeds vs seedlings: a tale of garden snobbery

The other night at the pub, I got into an animated discussion with a guy who thought that buying seedlings (vs seeds) was the ultimate gardening laziness.  It was not the first time I'd come across such plant 'purists' (as I think they'd like to be known), and it seems to be the gardening equivalent to competitive backpacking.

As a keen gardener, but also a reasonably time poor (and often cash poor) gardener I believe that seedlings have a valid place in a backyard garden, and here are a couple of reasons why:

• A punnet of seedlings often costs the same as a packet of seeds.  If you're anything like me, you don't want an entire packet's worth of spotted Turkish gourds, so it makes sense to just buy a ready sprouted punnet, particularly if you know that you can save the seeds for a following year (if the spotted gourds are worth it).  If you're fortunate enough to have a local seedling producer such as Hobart Kitchen Gardens, who sells individual pumpkin seedlings for $1 each, which have been grown from seeds produced by the Tasmanian-based Lost Seed company (they specialise in heirloom, true-to-type seeds, which means that you can reliably save seeds), then you'll actually be saving money with the knowledge that you can grow them again next year with the saved seeds.  A couple of months ago, I bought 3 pumpkins from the HKG stall at the Melville St Farmer's Market. All three were of different varieties and cost me $3 overall.  If I'd bought seeds, it would've cost me almost $10 for the 3 packets.  Yes, I would've had about 25 seeds in each packet, vs the one pumpkin seedling, but considering that I have a number of butternuts that I've grown from seed already (last year's saved seeds), who has room for that many pumpkins in a suburban backyard?
• Scenario 1: you've planted a packet of basil, and watched as the seeds sprouted, the little seedlings growing under your loving care as the spring weather warms the ground.  You're dreaming of all the pesto you're going to make etc etc.... and then one night, when they're about 3 cm tall, the entire patch is decimated by snails, an evil army of snails.  True story.  In this case, my solution was to buy another packet of seeds, but also buy a punnet of basil, so that I'd have some already started at the same growth as my homegrown seedlings.  When the beasts attack, seedlings are great consolation presents...
• Scenario 2: you've dug up a patch of weeds, and want to fill it quickly and cheaply with some colour.  So you go buy those tubs of pansies that are always for sale at 5 for $5 or something like that.  The pansies not only fill a gap, but are great for blocking weeds from coming up, particularly as they spread quite rapidly.  (plus, this is kinda embarrassing, but I cannot, for some perverse reason, grow pansies from seed.  If anyone has any tips, please share)
• You're new to gardening, you want to start off nice and easy, and it's a lot quicker and easier to buy seedlings than seeds, particularly as a lot of seeds need special conditions to sprout.  Don't feel guilty about buying seedlings, there's no shame.

Mr competitive gardener, I'll repeat, there's no shame in buying seedlings, just like there's no shame in wanting to see the Louvre, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Tower of London, the Angkor Wat, the Statue of Liberty, or the Sydney Opera House...

Rant over.

Incidently, I've been growing some things by seed in pots before I transfer them into the ground.  I've had little or no limited luck growing things like lebanese cucumbers, sunflowers, snapdragons, and pansies from seed in the ground, so it's often better to grow them in punnets and then transfer them to the ground later (something that I've only just acknowledged).  Some of the punnets, such as the Tigerella tomatoes and many butternut pumpkins have been given away as Christmas presents.

Pictured below are my 'flower' seeds: Sunflowers in the foreground, Zinnias on the right middle, black pansies and snapdragons in the unchanged pots (of course):

At one week

After 2 weeks. Note the still empty Pansy punnets... Oh and 'Nola' -the grape - is in the front

Below: The 'vege' box (I'm still finding a use for those beloved polystyrene boxes). Tigerella and Gardener's delight seedlings in the far top right, lebanese cucumbers, to the left of them, silverbeet in the middle left, experimental watermelon (I don't know how I'll go in Tassie's cool climate) on the bottom right, and more butternut pumpkins on the bottom:

One week in (note the number of black ex-pansy pots)

Two weeks later (with a couple of presents for friends missing)

oh the joys of mushroom compost

So after light-starving my inaugural three garden beds (shown in the previous post) in the hope of killing any stray weeds left behind, I uncovered them (hazaah!) and started mulching them with mushroom compost.  Now, at this point I should point out that before my vegie garden course, I didn't know what mulching was, or what mushroom compost was (in fact, I'm pretty sure I didn't even know of the existence of mushroom compost).  Luckily, the course has been jam packed with compost theory and mulch obsession, so I feel that I know a bit more now  (did you know that there's a difference between dirt and soil?!)

Anyhoo, I mulched, then decided to stick in a couple of tomatoes, one of which was given to me by my garden loving neighbour, who has millions of seedlings in his backyard in various yoghurt tubs, plastic cups and bottles.  He just passes them over the fence.  Sweet.

broad beans

I also planted a couple of his broad beans, and I'm hoping that the broad beans that I loathed as a child turn out a bit nicer in adulthood.  I transplanted a passionfruit from the rhubarb bed, which I'd temporarily stuck there, and also put in a few cucumbers (although I now know that cucumbers grow a little differently to how I thought - across, not up - so I may have to move them).

I had sat down originally with my Lost Seed packets to plan out a vegie garden.  I had my companion planting list, my crop rotation diagram which should, theoretically, determine what I plant together as well, and my entire garden map that I drew up a couple of weeks after moving into the house.  Of course, the companion planting and crop rotation groups were totally contradictory, and so I decided to plant things as I went, just as I always have done.

Just a quick note: Lost Seed are a Tasmanian company that make non-hybrid seeds (yes, something else that I learned in my course). Apparently if you want to grow things from seed the following year you're best off getting non-hybrid seeds.   They've got an amazing array of weird seeds.  Luckily for me they have companion planting summaries on each seed packet, listing a plant's likes and dislikes.  I tried to comply, and ended up following the companion planting far more than the crop rotation.  What does that say about me?

The images below show the three beds, with a weedy one in the foreground:

On the top bed, to the left, I have planted some 'Tigerella' tomato seeds.  The stakes make me look a lot more optimistic than I actually am.  They are simply marking the spot where I planted so that I can identify if they don't come up.  Of course if they do come up, the stakes can have the joyous job of holding Tigerella, the stripey (yes!) climbing tomatoes.

Oh, I should point out, on top of the tap thingy, there is a punnet of parsley that my earlier mentioned neighbour passed over.  I must remember to plant so as not to offend, for one of the major disadvantages of having a neighbour who can look down into your backyard  is that they can identify if you haven't planted their carefully raised seedlings.

Next to the Tigerella are some spinach seeds, the cucumbers (to be moved), and then 2 rows of lettuce.  I managed to show some restraint and only sow 2 rows, following the advice on the packet that wisely suggests staggered planting.

On the middle bed, there are (from left to right) the passionfruit plant, celery, some basil and the tomato seedlings planted a couple of weeks ago (this post actually covers about 2-3 weeks activity).  Along the eastern end of the bed are sown more tomato seeds, this time 'Gardener's Delight' of the climbing variety.  You can see more overenthusiastic staking. 

Then on the bottom bed there are the two mystery broad bean seedlings, a heap of dwarf bean seeds (as a gift from my mum), and some cauliflower.

With the exception of the spinach, tomatoes, celery (which was disasterous!) and basil, I've not attempted to grow most of these plants  before, so I'm quite excited to see what a cauliflower looks like, and I'm almost wetting myself over the Tigerellas.