- Hi, I'm Parris and I have a backyard garden
that I think I keep more to feed the neighborhood squirrels
than to actually produce vegetables for my family.
But each year I try again.
So this March I went out dutifully to Home Depot, Lowes,
see what seeds they had to plant.
And I found some beans, peas, carrots,
cauliflower, a couple of other things.
Bought the packs of seeds,
was gonna plant them today,
but I happened to be at the dollar store
and saw they have a seed rack up right now.
Their seeds are four packs for a dollar.
I paid between a $1.49 and $2.49 for my seeds
over at the home improvement store.
And I thought what's the actual difference
between 25 cents a pack seeds
and $2.49 a pack seeds.
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- There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer
that I could find as to why
these cost 10 times as much as these.
In fact, there are even more seeds in the cheaper pack.
So I'll tell you
what I've been able to find out on the matter
and I'm going to conduct my own experiment
into is there really any difference between these seeds
by planting both of them
in these large garden planters that I have.
One seed on one side, expensive seed on the other side.
Treat them exactly the same with the watering
and the thinning, the whole nine yards.
And see in a couple months
is there any reason to spend more money on seeds.
In this comparison I'm comparing Burpee brand seeds
to American Seed Company brand seeds.
They're both fairly well known
and apparently been around a long time and so forth.
The only real difference I can see in some of the packs
is the more expensive pack does have more seed in it.
Not the case with the cantaloupe, however.
And the Burpee seeds come in a plastic pack,
rather than the paper pack of the American Seed.
The plastic packs are supposed to keep
the moisture in the seeds longer so they don't dry out.
You have a better chance of them germinating.
In the paper packs if they're in a very dry environment,
the seeds inside can dry out.
I did check all the packs.
And they are all packed for 2017
and they expire the end of this year.
So it's not like I'm getting knowingly old seeds
from either company.
It's also possible there might be more expensive varieties
of the same plant and so maybe that's the cost of the seed.
The Burpee, I'm gonna use the cantaloupe as the example,
is a summer snack hybrid cantaloupe.
Sounds good.
And the American Seed Company
is Hale's Best Jumbo cantaloupe.
Doesn't sound quite as appetizing.
But when I read the description I'm supposed to get here
round, three to four pound fruits
with salmon colored flesh, super sweet.
Over here, nearly round, nearly round (laughs).
You pay for the being off shape a little.
Five to six inches in diameter,
weighing three to four pounds each
with thick, salmon colored sweet flesh.
Other differences you could be paying for in seeds
is heartiness.
They do both say I can plant them at the same time of year,
so that doesn't seem to be an issue.
Another difference you might pay for
is how quick they are to harvest.
You'd like to have your produce in sooner,
this harvests in 77 days and the less expensive seeds
do take 90 to 102 days.
So that might be a little of the cost.
'Cause these are faster growing seeds,
you get your cantaloupe sooner.
Other factors that are important
and could relate to the cost,
but I can't tell you about until I've planted these
and seen how they grow, is the percent that germinate.
Will a lot of these come up as plants, not so many of these?
I'll see.
Also how healthy are the plants?
Do you get more sickly plants with cheaper seeds
or does that not make a difference?
And once the plant has grown, how much fruit do you get
from each plant?
Lets head out back now and I'll show you
how I have things set up to test these seeds,
comparing them to one another.
And if you'd like to find out about either brand,
I'll have links to both down below this video.
Here are my raised bed planters.
These came as a set actually,
that would stack on top of each other.
So you could water just the top and they would all,
the water would flow down.
It was a good idea, but it didn't work too well
because leaves tended to plug it up.
So I had to separate them like this to use it anyhow.
There's the potting soil.
Now I have soil that was in here the last two years
down at the bottom and I've added more of
this Nature's Care Organic Raised Bed soil by Miracle Grow.
And on each of the planters I have with a Sharpie,
marked the dollar sign on the side that's going to have
the expensive seeds.
So I basically have three lobes that will have
the expensive seeds
and then over here the 25 cent a pack seeds.
I think I'm gonna plant three seeds in each lobe,
each corner and here.
So I'll have nine plants growing
for each type of seed in each planter.
And just a brief word about squirrels,
who will probably eat most of the seeds
or what grows from the seeds.
When Pierre can keep the under control
and out of trouble on the ground,
they go up onto the sides of the house and the roof
and try to dig through to inside.
And the solar panels, they nested under there,
piled up leaves and twigs so that the water pooled up
when it rained and it leaked
into the ceiling of the living room.
Squirrels.
In the course of planting these seeds
into the raised planters out in the backyard,
I did notice a couple times with the less expensive seeds,
I found sort of a dried out, broken seed
that I was about to put in
and decided to throw it away instead.
I did not find any bad seeds with the Burpee.
Here you can see what the seeds actually look like
and the quantity that was left over
after I did my equal planting out there
in the raised planter.
The more expensive Burpee seeds over here, as you can see,
surprisingly you actually get fewer seeds
in the case of the cantaloupe.
But, here in the American Seed cantaloupe,
I can see a couple more that look like
they may be cracked open or dehydrated.
And here, the peas, that's quite a difference
in the number of peas that you get.
And I would say these are a little bit larger.
Hard to tell if maybe these are a little more dried up.
All of the remaining seeds
and a couple other varieties I got,
I will plant in rows right out there
next to those raised garden containers.
Now to see what happens, you will have to check back.
If I'm seeing good results,
in about a month I'll do an update video then.
Otherwise I'll wait 'til about two months.
And go back and show you it's all side by side,
every condition should be equal for them.
And then check and see whether the 25 cent seeds
can keep up with the two and a half dollar seeds.
You can keep checking back for that video
or you can click that subscribe button down below.
You'll get notified when our videos go up.
See you on the next review.
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♫ Wanna watch it all night long