At the last home I was renting, there was a lot of wildlife at the back tree line- honeysuckle, blackberries, goldenrod- I loved wandering and seeing what I could find. Finding seeds was especially exciting for me because it felt like I was collecting the setup for the next year. Wild seeds aren’t great, however, if your aim is for a vegetable garden. But it was easy to build my stockpile up for not a lot of money.
I got lucky when I first started collecting seeds. I had a friend that bought pallets, and she had a gaylord come in with a ton of seeds inside. She sold me a lot of about 300 seeds for 10$. Around the same time, my local library started a seed exchange program. You could check out seeds to grow as long as you brought back some saved from what you grew, or donated new ones if that set didn’t work out for you.
The simplest and most budget friendly way to acquire seeds is to collect them at the end of a plant’s growing season. You can save the seeds from plants you’re already growing, or ones growing around you. Be careful, though, that you aren’t trespassing or accidentally taking seeds from a plant you shouldn’t be taking from. (I found out it’s illegal in some states to take seeds or plants off the sides of highways- no not the hard way thankfully.) I’ve also had luck with plants going to seed out in public though, like the petunias and marigolds that were growing in the front entrance where I used to work, or a magnolia tree at my school.
This year I had plenty of marigolds and morning glories at home to pull from. 6 marigold plants gave me so many flower heads I’m already a quarter full into a paper lunch bag of dried seeds with plenty more to come.
You can hit up stores at the end of the growing season for discounted seed packets. The dollar store had seeds packets going for 10 cents each. They were all for onions and eggplants, which we don’t do a whole lot with. But I can use them for getting seeds for plants I do want. There are multiple seed trading groups online. A lot of them have wish list posts where you can post the seeds you have, and the seeds you’re looking for and build your stash up that way. I also bought a pack of dried bean soup beans and planted those. I harvested way too early, and a lot of the beans molded, but I ended up with nearly 100 plants from one bag of beans.
The last way I’ve discovered is a plant library. Think of the little free libraries with a little cabinet of books outside, but with plants! A neighbor here has a shelf outside where she leaves small cuttings, pots, seed packets and the like and people come by and take or leave something to do with plants. It’s a great program and an even better way to trade what you have for what you want.
I hope these help you build your seed stockpile!