Pros and Cons Of Trading vs Buying Seeds

In this blog, we will be explaining the pros and cons of trading seeds. Then we will be explaining the same about buying seeds.

The Pros To Trading Seeds

The most common pro to trading seeds is the amount of money you save from buying them. Also, another pro to go along with saving money was you get to try all these different varieties also at such a low cost. This is how we started trading for seeds, all different kinds and varieties. We amounted a collection of vegetables, herbs, and flowers from trading which is also a pro. Another pro is sometimes you are lucky enough to get something that is rare that no one sells or has. This is how we got the Heirloom tomato Australian Beauty back in 2016. Also, with trading and this one can also happen when buying you might find a mutated leaf type from being a potato leaf to a regular leaf version. This also happened to me with Kentucky Plate Tomato this season.

The Cons Of Trading Seeds

Some cons of trading seeds is first is trusting the person you are trading with to send your seeds. Next is also trusting the person who sent you the seeds to be what he or she said they were. These were the 2 main reasons why we got away from trading, some people wouldn’t send them, which happened a few times. But the most common was when we selected the seeds from what we amounted from trading to grow for my season. We always ended up with things that were not what we traded for. This is why documenting what you are growing is important, we have a blog on how we document our grows. So if someone sent you the wrong seeds, and you grew them out, the only thing you can really do with them is eat them or sell them to restaurants and farmers markets. So it is kind of a waste of time especially if you were growing them to trade them again or to sell them it is one less kind you have to offer. Now, if this happened on a few varieties you grew, it adds up. This is how the seed community ends up with so many kinds and not true varieties. Lastly, is all the seeds you keep trading for eventually goes bad over time, and you can not grow them all out if you are collecting them. So it is costing you money if you can not grow them out.

The Pros Of Buying Seeds

Some of the pros to buying seeds is you are 99 percent guaranteed to get what you purchased. The reason I say 99 percent is because we are all human and mistakes do happen that goes for all seed selling companies. When you have helpers in the garden and processing mistakes happen. If a mistake happens from mislabeling when picking or processing we either eat the tomatoes or sell them at the market. We DO NOT process them for seeds to sell because we can not stand behind them. Also seed companies will stand by what the sell which you do not get in trading. The last pro is the seed sellers put a lot of time by describing flavors, looks and a lot of picture taking to show you everything about the seeds they are selling in their listing of each variety.

The Cons Of Buying Seeds

The cons of buying seeds is the cost of the seeds and the shipping.

Why Buying Seeds Is Costly

The reason for this is the seed sellers give you the guarantee you are getting what you paid for. Next, it is a lot of work to ensure that guarantee from documentation. Also, it takes a bunch of time to grow and process them. Then we have to take pictures, write descriptions, pay for their website and everything else that goes with it, Next time posting on their websites, PayPal, and payment methods taking a percentage of sales. But we can not to leave out when shipping all the seeds bags, labels, postage/tracking and envelopes. Additionally, if they have hired help in some bigger companies. We wanted to show why seeds are expensive to buy. Customers do not realize how much goes into selling seeds, heck, we did not realize either when we first got into trading and buying seeds why they were so expensive to buy until we started up this site. We hope this post helps to see the pros and cons of trading and buying seeds, and why seeds cost what they do to buy.

We hope this blog explained all the pros and cons of trading and buying seeds.

Happy Growing

https://bountyhunterseeds.com/2021/11/21/how-i-document-what-i-grow/