It’s spring and garden centers are bursting with adorable little baby plants waiting to find a loving home in your vegetable garden.
You load up your cart and take the seedlings home.
Each one gets tucked into the garden bed and watered in. Not long after, you notice some plants are flourishing and others are languishing.
Did I do something wrong? You wonder.
The answer is no. Well, maybe yes, a little bit.
Through no fault of your own, you tried to plant seedlings that hate being transplanted.
These moody, temperamental plants are throwing a fit in your garden and refusing to grow like their other, well-behaved plant friends just because they were transplanted.
Direct Sowing Is Best for Certain Plants
In this post, I’m going to help you navigate the seedling section at the garden center and discover which vegetables and flowers should always be direct sown.
You’ll know exactly which plants hate having their roots disturbed and will grow poorly if transplanted or moved and learn to direct sow these vegetables and flowers.
One packet of seed typically costs the same or less than store-bought transplants.
So not only will you have healthier plants as a result of direct seeding, you will be saving money on your garden!
Lastly, some vegetables and flowers are on this list simply because they are more cost-effective to buy as seed. Seeds can really last a long time if stored properly. I wrote a post about how long seeds can last and how to properly store them. Check it out if you want to know more about that.
The plants that are more cost-effective to buy as seeds are ones that you typically want to grow more than one of (who would ever plant only one carrot?), or ones that bolt (go to seed) quickly and need to be replanted for a continuous harvest.
Three cheers for direct sowing!
Started Plants You Should Never Buy at the Garden Center (Vegetables and Flowers)
Plant these vegetable seeds right into the ground or your raised beds and they will be more likely to thrive in your garden.
- arugula (rocket)
- beans
- beets
- carrots
- cilantro (coriander)
- corn
- cucumber
- dill
- melons
- mesclun greens
- okra
- peas (snap and shelling)
- potatoes
- pumpkins/winter squash
- radishes
- turnips (swedes)
- zucchini/summer squash (courgette)
And a few flowers.
- nasturtium
- sunflowers
- zinnias
Let’s break down this list by plant type.
Leafy Greens and Herbs
Salad greens and herbs are some of the best plants to grow from seed if you want to save money gardening.
Seed packets of arugula and lettuce often contain 200 seeds or more and are sold for less than $4.
A single transplant or a 4-pack of seedlings costs about the same amount.
So while you can transplant these seedlings very carefully and they will survive, they will be more likely to bolt and need to be succession sown (plant them again for another wave of harvest), meaning you will have to buy these seedlings over and over again to get a continuous crop throughout the growing season.
Have I convinced you to buy seeds? Let’s look at my favorite leafy greens and herbs to direct sow in the garden.
Arugula (Rocket)
Arugula grows very quickly and easily from seed. “Rocket” is a very good name for it because it does indeed shoot up like a rocket once it starts growing!
Within a month, baby arugula will be ready to harvest. Yes, it really grows that quickly!
You can start growing arugula about a month before your last frost date or once daytime temps are around 40°F (4°C).
It will bolt quickly in the summer, but keep your seed packet handy, because once temperatures cool down again in the fall, you can plant more rounds of arugula.
Mesclun Greens
Mesclun greens is a mix of salad greens including lettuce, kale, spinach, mustard, mizuna, and more, that are grown to the baby leaf stage.
Mesclun mixes are beautiful and colorful and can produce a harvest about a month after seeding.
You will never find a more fresh, tender, and flavorful salad than one you grew yourself in the spring!
The best way to grow mesclun greens is to broadcast seed over a prepared bed. Keep the soil moist but not wet for the best-tasting and quickest growth.
Cilantro
Cilantro bolts quickly in warm weather and once the plants flower, the taste of the leaves changes and becomes unpleasant.
I always direct sow my cilantro as early as March, or 6 weeks before my last frost date. It takes a little while for the seeds to germinate, but once it does, don’t be afraid to harvest leaves aggressively to keep it productive.
Dill
Dill is in the carrot family, so it does grow a taproot like carrots do. It’s also quick to bolt, which can be a good thing if you are growing dill for the flowers, but not as preferable if you want mostly leaves.
Fortunately, it couldn’t be more easy to grow dill. I typically sprinkle a pinch of dill seeds wherever I want it to grow, then just walk away.
We usually get enough rain for the dill to sprout and grow on its own, and if you let the plant flower and go to seed, you can use the dill seeds as a spice in your cooking or canning, or save the seeds to grow more dill again next year.
Root Vegetables
In general, any vegetable grown for its edible roots should be direct sown to get the best quality roots for eating. Let’s go through a few examples together.
Carrots
Carrots are a terrific example of a vegetable to never buy as a seedling. A carrot is one single, long taproot.
If you disturb the root, it will split and grow into a smaller funky shape.
Not really ideal for carrots.
And I don’t know about you, but I find that it’s not worth it to grow one single carrot in my garden.
I’ve got to grow multiple carrots for it to be worth growing. This is where choosing to buy a packet of 200 carrot seeds is much better than buying a carrot transplant. I’m not really sure anyone sells carrots as transplants, but if you do happen to find them for sale, it’s a trick. Do not buy them!
Beets and Turnips
Both beets and turnips do not transplant easily.
It’s not impossible to do, but it is not an easy thing for beginner gardeners. You must do it while the roots are still very young, but big enough that they are able to hold the soil onto their roots in the cell they are planted in.
Plants grown in cell trays or flats can very quickly become too large to transplant, and if that happens, you may as well start over because the plants will not grow well when root bound.
Radishes
Radishes are a fun root to grow. I plant radish seeds everywhere I have space for it in the early spring about a month before my last frost date.
They germinate quickly and are ready to harvest in as little as 35 days!
Growing radishes from seed is so rewarding.
If you want to experience instant gratification in gardening, grow a bed full of radishes, arugula, and mesclun greens. It’s about as instant as you can get in gardening.
Potatoes
Potatoes technically don’t grow from what we think of as “seed.” They grow from “seed potatoes” which are really just a regular ol’ potato.
It is much more cost-effective to buy a small pack of seed potato and plant each potato rather than buying a started plant.
Each seed potato should yield 3 to 5 pounds of new potatoes. Pretty good ROI, don’t you think?
Fruiting-type Vegetables
The last category we’ll explore are the fruiting-type vegetables. This category includes everything from beans to squash. Any vegetable that must have its flowers pollinated (including those with self-pollinating flowers) in order to set fruit that we can eat is a fruiting type.
Beans and Peas
Beans and peas both are easy to handle and direct sow. You can grow bush beans or peas, which will stay short, or grow pole beans or peas which will need to be trellised.
Peas grow best in the cool seasons of spring and fall, while beans grow quickly in the summer heat.
Beans are a terrific seed to plant in summer when you need to fill in an empty spot in your garden because they grow so quickly.
Corn
Corn is best grown from seed sown in place. Its roots are sensitive and it grows a taproot. If transplanted as a large seedling, it could take weeks to recover from transplant shock.
Corn needs lots of space and nutrition to grow well, so it’s one of those vegetables that you have to really commit to to get a decent harvest. Because corn is wind-pollinated, it’s best to plant corn in blocks to make sure corn kernels grow evenly.
Cucumber, Melons, and Watermelon
I’m lumping cucumber, melons, and watermelon together because they grow fairly similarly in my garden.
All three types of fruit should be planted in warm, rich soil.
The vines grow quickly when direct-sown in warm weather, so make sure to have a plan for where those vines will grow! I plant mine on the edge of my raised beds where they can trail off the sides, or on my arch trellises where they can climb.
Okra
Okra is a very fast grower in warm weather. I usually wait until the end of June to plant my okra so it can have consistent warmth, and it just takes off.
Okra grows a long taproot like corn and sunflowers do, and it doesn’t like to be disturbed.
All the Squashes
Summer squash and winter squash are notoriously difficult to transplant. Like most of the other plants on this list, squashes grow rapidly and dislike having their roots disturbed.
An unhappy plant is more susceptible to pests and disease, and squash already is prime target for squash bugs, squash vine borers and powdery mildew.
To grow the best squash, whether zucchini, butternut, tromboncino, or pumpkin, wait until the weather and your soil is warm. Fertilize with compost, rotted manure, and/or organic fertilizer. Plant your squash seeds in small mounds following the directions on your seed packet.
Make sure you water your squash plants regularly or they will become very wilty in the heat of summer.
Bonus: 3 Garden Flowers
There are many flowers that I could include in the “do not transplant” list, but for now, I’m only going to mention my three favorites for the vegetable garden. These are flowers I plant in my raised beds every year to bring in pollinators right up to my veggie plants and to add color.
Nasturtiums and Zinnias
Nasturtiums and zinnias have sensitive roots and dislike being transplanted. Both flowers have large seeds that are easy to sow and germinate.
I have a post about growing zinnias if you want to check that out.
Sunflowers
Sunflowers grow a long central taproot that can reach up to 6 feet deep!
Can you imagine buying a transplant with a 6-foot taproot?
Sunflower seeds are good to direct sow because they are large and easy to handle. If you want to grow the tallest sunflower on the block, definitely plant sunflowers from seed and not as transplants.
Direct Sowing Is a Great Way to Garden
If you’ve made it this far, you now know which plants are best started from seed for the vegetable garden.
Any vegetable that grows quickly, has a taproot or sensitive roots, that you want to grow a lot of, or to succession sow should be grown from seed.
Transplanting seedlings is a great way to get a head start on your growing season, and is even necessary for certain long-growing plants like tomatoes and peppers.
However, sowing seed directly into your garden should not be overlooked or ignored.
Seeds are just an amazing part of creation.
There’s so much potential for life inside each little seed. I hope this post inspires you to garden from seed and enjoy the whole process from seed to harvest.
Where to Find Good Seeds
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you buy through my links, I could earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. I only discuss products that I love and think you’ll love, too. I’m glad you’re here and thanks for reading!
Check your local nursery or garden center for vegetable and flower seeds. I like shopping online for seeds as well and would recommend these seed companies.
Use caution when purchasing from Amazon or Etsy and check that reviewers have actually grown the seeds they received to maturity.
Lastly, if you’re wondering whether you should grow heirloom or hybrid seeds, read this post next.
