Starting Seeds Indoors: 5 Benefits for Your Farm

Have You Considered Starting Your Own Seeds but Haven’t Given it a Try Yet?

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by Stephanie Thurow
PHOTO: Adobe Stock/Collins Photography

Starting seeds indoors can start as early as mid-January. There are many plants that need a longer head start for growing than the warm season in many parts of the country will allow for, such as rosemary, onions and leeks.

Have you considered starting your own seeds but haven’t given it a try yet? Here are five reasons why it’s worth trying.

5 Benefits to Starting Seeds Indoors

1. Seed starting is less expensive overall. There are some upfront costs to growing your own seeds but many of them are a one-time expense. Once you have the supplies (seed starting containers, supplemental light, heat mats), you’ll be able to use them year after year. But honestly, I’ve started my seeds in reused plant containers and clean plastic food containers (yogurt and cottage cheese) for over a decade and I just bought my first heat mat this past spring. Besides grow lights, I haven’t purchased anything specialized and each year I start hundreds of seeds. I’m telling you this so you understand that expensive seed-starting equipment isn’t required.

Consider how much you pay per plant at the nursery and what it would cost to grow that plant yourself. For example, one nasturtium plant start at the nursey near my house is $5. I can purchase a packet of nasturtium seeds for $3 and grow 20+ starts. Better yet, once you grow your own, you can save the seeds from them and grow them the following year without spending a dime on seeds.

2. Starting seeds indoors allows you to grow a larger variety than what’s available at the nursery. Have you ever paged through a seed catalog? Wow, they have some unique plants that are sure to surprise you. Did you know there are 19 different options for beets that range nearly every color of the rainbow? There are many more plant options in seed form compared to what you can find at your local nursery. It makes growing your own food and plants even more exciting.

3. Starting seeds indoors generally results in healthier plants. When you start your own seeds with a quality seed starting mix, lovingly tend to them for months and make sure they are watered and healthy, they generally result in a more quality plant than what you can purchase.

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4. Starting seeds indoors is a great way to get through the long winter, at least for the northern gardeners. A lot of people have great setups for growing inside but I don’t and end up taking over the living room of my house as my growing space. Thankfully, my family enjoys the plant starts being inside – it helps make the cold and brown winter a tad easier to navigate. It somehow shortens our cold season by starting our summer gardens in the dead of winter.

5. It’s incredibly satisfying. I relish the fact that nearly all of my vegetables and flowers are grown from seed (and most from saved seeds!). It’s so satisfying to harvest flowers and food from teeny tiny seeds you started months ago. All the effort of watering and weeding paid off and now you get to enjoy the literal fruits of your labor.

This article about starting seeds indoors was written for Hobby Farms magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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