The high cost of commercial seed purchases!

I had occasion to go to a seed website today to look at some seeds for my planned spring garden. What a surprise to find that a package of just 30 Red Cayenne seeds were going to cost me $3.95 for the package and $4.95 to ship them to me. That’s a cost of .30 cents per seed! I then tried adding four packets of seeds (bean, tomato, melon and cucumber) into the shopping basket to find that the shipping was now $6.96 for a total cost of $18.75! Folks, that is just too much money! And yes, there is a cheaper way around this problem.

For one thing, you can frequent the local mega-marts like Lowe’s and Home Deport where you can often find the exact same packages fro the same company for less than half the cost. Plus there is no shipping charge! What might cost $2.95 on-site may only be $1.95 at the store. That’s a real bargain.

Another way to get around this is to plant only heirloom seeds and then allow some of the plants to go to seed. I’ve done just that this past season with hot cayenne peppers, sweet Banana peppers, Kentucky Wonder beans and even Cherry Bell radishes. I’ve carefully dried these and then stored them in small packages in the bottom of the fridge. I now have plenty to plant and even to share come next spring.

I was thinking also, it might be fun if other began traded seeds via the mail or even started selling them to other interested parties. One idea I had was to offer ten seeds if someone sent an order. I would only request that they also include an extra .41 cent stamp, by way of payment, for each packet of ten seeds processed. Such a transaction would not include actual money, but would allow for the seller to ship out ten seeds at a cost to the buyer of .82 cents while the seller makes a profit of .41 cents. Additional batches of seeds could then be purchased at a rate of ten seeds for every stamp included. Anyone out there who might want to comment on this, I would appreciate hearing from them. I'm just trying to think outside the box.