Seeds or seedlings: which to buy, crop by crop

Walk into any garden center in spring and you face the same quiet decision at every table: the seed packet for two dollars or the started seedling for six. The right answer is not a personality trait. It is crop by crop, and it mostly comes down to whether the plant tolerates being moved.

Root crops answer for themselves: carrots, radishes, beets, and turnips go in as seed, always. A carrot's taproot is the harvest, and transplanting bends or forks it. Beans and peas also prefer direct sowing; they sprout so quickly and resent root disturbance so much that a purchased six-pack is paying extra for a worse result. Squash, cucumbers, and melons sit in the same camp, though they will tolerate a move if the seedling is young.

The transplant camp is just as clear. Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants need a long head start that most growing seasons cannot give from seed in the ground, and they genuinely enjoy transplanting: a tomato buried deep grows roots all along its stem. Broccoli, cabbage, and their cousins also move well and benefit from the head start against summer heat.

Leafy greens sit in the middle. Lettuce, spinach, and kale work either way; seed is dramatically cheaper for anything you harvest in quantity, while a purchased pack buys you two weeks and is a fair trade for a first attempt.

The money rule underneath it all: seeds for anything you grow in rows, transplants for anything you grow in ones and twos. Nobody needs forty tomato plants, and nobody should pay transplant prices for a row of radishes.