Walk into a dollar store in late winter and you might find vegetable seed packets selling for a fraction of what the glossy garden catalog charges. Put a 50-cent packet beside a $5 packet of seemingly similar tomato, lettuce, or cucumber seeds, and it’s reasonable to wonder what you’re actually getting for that extra $4.50. The surprising answer is that cheap garden seeds aren’t automatically inferior simply because the packet costs less. Seed quality, freshness, variety, germination, seed count, genetics, and storage conditions matter considerably more than the price printed on the display. Before spending $50 filling your seed box with premium packets, here’s how the cheap-versus-expensive comparison really works.
