I always buy too many seeds, but I try to restrain myself in planting too many seeds. It is hard because I start them in 128 cell flats.. but I transplant them up to 36 cell flats or 3x3 pots so you can see how much more room they take up when they get bigger. The worst feeling is the month before they go out and I don't have adequate lighting for all of them and then they start to get spindly. So I try really hard to plan everything out so I have enough room to keep them stocky and sturdy the whole time before they go outside.

If I had your set-up .. 2-4ft shop lights and 2-24" ones.... I would plant maybe 20-30 plants depending on what they are.

What are you growing? veggies, flowers, herbs...

Keriann~

I always buy and start too many. When I run out of room in the house I just go buy more lights to make more room. Then when I fill up the extra room made I make more room. I usually never use everything I start from seed. My neighbors end up getting my leftovers. I start annual flowers. I started about 15 flats this year, 48 and 72 cell packs but many things get potted up to 4" pots or 9oz & 16oz plastic cups.

My answer is: What in the world were you thinking! I started 10 Sungold, 8 Heatwave II, 6 Premio tomatoes & 16 pimiento peppers. The peppers are struggling to come up. I'll plant more. This amount is double of what I need. I'll giveaway the extras to neighbors. I need to start the cucumbers, chives and parsley later. I have 6 different packages of zinnias waiting to be started in a month. And the others are all flowers: verbena*, gazania*, snapdragons*, coreopsis*, shasta daisies, pansies*, carnations, oriental poppies, penstemon^, gallardia^, coneflowers*^, rudbeckia*, yarrow^, butterfly weed, lobelia. My sister & I will keep ALL the flowers, no giveaways. * more than one variety.

I saved seeds from my now died butterfly weed & cherry brandy rudbeckia. I also had seeds left from seed packages that I bought last year I planted this year. I'm still looking at seeds catalogs. I'm think about buy some to grow bulbs, gloxinia & dalias. For almost 15 years I did not plant my our seeds. And I have the plant stand my father built. All it needed was some new bulbs.

Tell me what you are growing too. I want to grow more but we get cold here in St. Louis winters & some varieties of perennials are not that cold hardy. ^ I'm trying to pick a few new plants that I have never grown before. I'll take recommendations everyday of the week!

I have started or will start: petunias, verbena, begonia, impatiens, african daises, basil, parsley, Fargo dahlias, regular dahlia tubers (about 100 of them), brugmansia cuttings, ivy cuttings, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, pumpkins and squash, sensitive plant, bacopa, and a bunch more misc plants both veggies and flowers

Keriann~

Too many seeds? Not yet, but I'm working on it :-) I just love watching all the new sprouts pop up.

I always run out of room in the basement, so this year, I'm wintersowing as well. I have two gardens to do: mine and my mother in law's. I have a decent start on my own, but I built new beds last year and I want to give the whole front garden a complete overhaul.
The little bit here and there I've been doing at my MIL's place, that isn't working out so well, so I'm going to approach it as if it were a brand new garden. And she had a large wooded lot, so I need lots of plants. Seeds are much more cost effective.

WHen it comes time to plant out, I'll most likely be in the "what was I thinking?" category.

I think I might be closing in on just right after too many years of what was I thinking. A couple weeks ago I actually walked out of a store with no seed packs!! This is Y3 of winter sowing and I've kept the container count well below 200 (so far) after doing 500 the first year and 300 last year. The Starbuck's barista at work is only saving me 5 milk jugs a week this year instead of 15 or 20 which helps keep the numbers lower.

I harvested way more seeds from my own perennials in 2011 and traded for lots that were on my wish list so that probably helped keep the seed buying under control. I also gave a few hundred seed packs away in newbie offers so that reduced my inventory pretty quickly. I know many seeds are viable for a few years after harvest but I prefer to start with fresh seeds when I'm putting the effort into growing them.

I'll most likely be in the "what was I thinking?" category along with fixerupperinnh by sometime in May. Oh well, there are plenty of hobbies less healthy than gardening.

At least I won't be alone come May. I agree that gardening is a healhier choice of a hobby. If I didn't have my garden, I would spend all of my time in front of the TV, which is pretty much how I spend the winter months.
I have started my Spring cleaning. Once the warm weather hits, there won't be any chance of getting me to do it, so it's much better to get it out of the way now.

Why, yes. Yes I did.

I got tons of Bearded Iris seed I bought on ebay. They were a deal. I won't have to worry about finding room till the weather turns cold again as they need to be statified and all that.

I have trays and trays - under lights, in windows, some very cold foxgloves in my greenhouse that are alive but looking like crap (atleast now the aphids on them are dead)
and what am I going to do with 18 begonias anyways? But
it does really help with those winter blues

Too many everything in my case. I seem to over engineer everything and spend 10x more than I originally budget. I end up having engineering projects that are a result of my engineering projects, and after I build something, I learn so many lessons during the construction that I end up scrapping it and building a new one, the "right way" lol.

This is how bad it is now. I fixed one of my shop lights that the ballast died. I borrow a 4 ft. shop light from another part of the basement to hold me over until I got the ballast. I'm thinking now to borrow that shop light again to start my 150+ zinnias. Now where is my a drill & eye hooks. If I'm still in trouble, there is one really good shop light left in the garage to borrow.

Buy too many seeds? Is that possible?

That is like asking a woman if she has too many pairs of shoes. What a ridiculous concept.

It seems manageable (mostly) until I have to repot the tomatoes and peppers etc. into BIGGER pots and then run out of room. Not to mention spending a small fortune on quality potting mix.

There is no such thing as too many! (but quite possibly I did)

Hello, my name is Kevin and I am a seed-a-holic. I have a small garden area that can hold a limited number of plants. Yet I have purchased over 40 varieties of heirloom/OP tomatoes in the last three years, and I save seeds each year too. Even if I only planted one tomato plant from each type I would still have too many plants for my patch of dirt. I also grow 3 times more seeds than I need and give those away. Its march and I have refrained from planting this year as of yet, because I have tended to start too early, but I am getting the itch.

Kevinitis - tomato seeds can be winter sowed this early and will sprout when the hours of daylight + temperature + moisture in the container trigger their genetic code the time is right. Since they're grown outside, there's no hardening off because they're already accustomed to fluctuating outdoor temperatures. They tolerate late cold snaps and grow into the sturdiest plants you've ever seen. Just thought I'd let you know in case you can't ignore that itch...

A New England Seed-a-holic

Yes, I bought too many seeds. It's just too tempting not to have every color of those beautiful heirloom tomatoes. I started kale, basil, & (3) varieties of peppers on Saturday. Then today I planted (5) varieties of heirlooms as well as a black cherry & yellow pear. I plan on direct sowing my (4) varieties of lettuce, radish, carrot & onion.
Now it does not seem like a lot compared to some of the posts here but I am a first time seed starter so I feel like I'm being a little too ambitious. However, last year my entire garden was from plants and, while it was fun, it was not cheap. I'm hoping that going the seed route will end up yielding me at least (2) plants of everything and then I will have a huge cost savings already. If I get more...lucky for my friends & neighbors!

Thanks garden weed, I am aware of the winter sown technique but I have not ever tried it. Last year was horrible. I planted my starts 6 weeks out and then a huge storm hit a few days before I was to plant. Unfortuneatly it continued to have poor weather for the next 3 and a half weeks. So by the time my plants were in the ground, they were almost 10 weeks old. This year the weather looks milder, yeah yeah, this year it will be different, this year's last frost will be early, I can feel it......or it could just be my itch.

Twenty Five flats of annual flowers wasn't enough so I went and bought more seeds to start three more flats. I am somewhere over 500 plants growing right now with about 6 weeks to go before I can start putting things outside. The crazy part is that I have a teeny tiny yard that is already stuffed wall to wall.

Well, since I'm a balcony gardener... one envelope/packet is too many. So yes.

Three years ago I bought six varieties of coleus. They came in 1000 seed lots. I am still planting them, about two hundred this year. I donate them to most plant sales, cause I can not stand to see them go to waste. Al

No, of course not. How many is too many?

I try to keep things kind-of within reason. Strong emphasis on the kind-of. I still buy many different kinds of seed but a little restraint keeps me from buying everything that I look at and go "Oooooo That's Pretty!" Most of my seed comes from Thompson and Morgan because I like the fact that they offer almost everything under the sun, but this year I also took advantage of some offers that I got in the mail where the companies gave me a $25 gift certif and just made me pay the shipping and handling. I don't worry about what I don't plant because everything is chillin in the freezer in ziploc bags and I have never had issues with just pulling things out of the freezer when I need them. My grandparents always stored all their seed in the freezer and I find that this works for me too.

Buying too many seeds for starting indoors is one thing, but I bought too many seeds for OUTDOOR growing!

I think there's too many veggie seeds in the packs, and not enough flower seeds. I usually buy singles of veggie seeds and can't imagine using all of most of them, but buy as many as 6 packs each of flowers I like and never have enough.

I have really overdone it this year! I had some time off this winter and by the end of February I got the itch so bad that I couldn't help but get some seed started. I am in zone 4 and my last frost isn't until the middle of May. You can imagine how big my tomatoes are at this moment(9 inches) and having 2 months to go, how big they will be by the time I can plant them outdoors. I am almost embarrassed, I also started peppers and onions! I have already repotted most and am out of room for anything more, but then I went and planted some broccoli and oregano. I told my husband we will be converting the ping pong table in the basement as the table for the starts because I got my hands on a 1000watt grow light. So now I've got plans to start some basil, cucumbers, pumpkin, marigolds, parsley, calendula and I'm sure more I can't remember. So now I will divulge that I only have 2 15x15 garden plots, one of them half filled with strawberries. I have no idea what I will do with all the starts, I just want to grow them. Oh, and I planted my peas outside already. Yes, there is truly something wrong with me..lol! Maybe I need to move somewhere where the winters aren't so long.

I always start way too many seeds indoors than I know I'll have room for. I like it though, gives me plenty of options to choose the best plants for my beds and garden. Plus I can give away the leftover to friends and family.

Got a 12 x 10 greenhouse and started soil blocking this year and I have enough plants to start a small farm. Approximately 2400 so far and I'm not done yet. I live in the city and have a 200 square foot garden. My plan is to sell the extras to raise money for my daughter's school. I just can't leave seeds in the package once they're opened. I am a germination addict.