Countdown to Spring: Seed Sticker Shock

Houseplants are wonderful.  The duty to their continued year-round green existence is lovingly performed.  But, starting plants from seed this time of year isn't just to have plants mature enough to transplant and get flowers or a crop of herbs and veggies from sometime in the upcoming months.  It's also to see the renewal process begin a few weeks earlier than the snow cover outside would ever allow.  To see those tiny starter leaves pop through the soil and slowly develop into much more does a winter-weary heart and mind good.

My intention was to buy seeds today and get them going for all the reasons outlined above.  I wasn't able to go to the store that I normally have a variety of seeds and seed companies to chose from, but I figured I'd pick up at least one or two packs to start when I stopped by the little display at the hardware store I had to go to.  Then I saw the prices.

In younger days, seed packets could be had for 10 cents.  Prices have slowly crept up from there over the years, of course.  Inflation misses no product or service nowadays.  The ordinary varieties of vegetable and flower seeds were always a little lower than the fancier ones.  Not so much anymore.  Prices have mostly equalized and at least at this display, they all started at over $2 a packet.

Now, I just bought seeds last year and while they weren't 10 cents, they weren't all over $2, either.  I need to get back to the store where I normally buy them and see if this is true no matter where I go.  I had intentions of starting 3 vegetables, 3 flower types and 4 herbs.  But to have to pay $20 or more for 10 seed packets on a tight budget is too much right now.  I could have bought the two packets today, but I just couldn't make myself pay that total without shopping around first.  I walked out of the store empty-handed, as they didn't have the item I went there for in the first place, anyway.

So, my best laid plans went awry, at least for the moment.  There are options like waiting for a sale or sharing the cost with a fellow seed-starter.  My spring-fevered brain wanted to buy seeds now, though, and come home and get my hands dirty playing in the soil.   I wanted to plant seeds and wait with happy anticipation for those touches of green to break through the surface.  But, it didn't happen, at least not today.

But it will.

Only 35 days until spring.