A packet of vegetable seeds can look almost comically small next to a grocery-store bag of produce, but those tiny seeds can turn into a surprisingly generous harvest. For gardeners watching their grocery budget, growing vegetables from seed often costs far less than buying the same produce week after week, especially when a single planting keeps producing.
The savings become even more appealing when a garden replaces vegetables that spoil quickly in the refrigerator. Lettuce, radishes, beans, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini and several leafy greens all make excellent candidates because gardeners can start them from inexpensive seed and harvest exactly what they need. There is no giant bag of wilted greens hiding behind the milk, quietly becoming a science project.
