Has anyone else bought The Garden Corner Seeds from Dollarama?
We have a Dollarama dollar store in Cloverdale that I usually stop at a couple of times a month. The birds are eating me out of house and home on the suet cakes I buy at Dollarama. They used to cost $1 each, but the price went up at the beginning of 2021 to $1.25.
That sucks. Prices on everything are going up.
Anyway, while I was on one of my suet stock up trips in early April, I noticed garden seeds available for 99¢. Decent price. A package of seeds runs closer to $3 just about everywhere garden supplies are sold.
I checked out the varieties, looking for zucchini for my planter, but they didn’t have any.
Instead I bought watermelon and pepper seeds.
I’ve never had any luck growing watermelon, so it doesn’t make much sense that I bought a package of watermelon seeds! But I figured this will be my first time of growing watermelon in a planter, so maybe I’ll actually get some watermelon this year.
I’ve never grown peppers before. This variety is called Early California Wonder and there are pictures of red and green peppers on the envelope.
I got a nice surprise at the cash register. The seed packets ran through at 34¢ each!
THE GARDEN CORNER SEEDS
Who is this company The Garden Corner?
Is it just an unknown company that supplies dollar stores with cheap garden seeds?
The envelope says A. E. McKenzie Co.
McKenzie Seeds are a popular Canadian brand. Their flower, fruit, and vegetable seeds can be purchased anywhere that sells garden supplies.
Does that mean The Garden Corner seeds are inferior in some way to the regular McKenzie Seeds? Are they old seeds? How many seeds in each envelope?
I hope The Garden Corner isn’t going El Cheapo on customers! It makes me wonder if these dollar seeds are even going to germinate and sprout.
The Garden Corner Seeds from Dollarama appear to be a proprietary brand for this dollar store. I haven’t seen the Garden Corner Seeds anywhere else.
ZUCCHINI!
About two weeks later I went back to Dollarama and stopped to check out the seeds. There weren’t many packages left on the rack.
But it was my lucky day! The Garden Corner zucchini seeds were on the shelf.
Double lucky!
Still rang through the cash register for 34¢.
PLANTING DAY
I had to wait until it warmed up enough before planting The Garden Corner seeds. That day came on May 12, 2021.
I planted nine watermelon seeds.
Then I opened the zucchini envelope. There were only nine seeds, so I planted them all.
Yikes! That seems a little chintzy on the number of zucchini seeds. Surprising because I had lots of extra watermelon seeds.
I also planted nine pepper seeds, and had plenty left over.
Final verdict is that The Garden Corner only went El Cheapo on the number of zucchini seeds.
SPROUTING
All the seed packages said they’d sprout in a week to two weeks.
As of May 31, 2021, eight watermelon seeds sprouted, but only six are still hanging in there. The reason I plant nine is because I don’t expect all seeds to sprout, and those that do can get eaten by insects or birds, or don’t mature enough to grow vegetables. Of the six little watermelon plants, two look like they’re not much longer for this world.
Four zucchini have sprouted. Two look like they’re coming along pretty nicely. One looks like something is eating it, and the fourth looks like the runt of the litter.
Peppers? Not a pepper is growing that I can tell. There are little weeds growing, so I’m not weeding anything. It’s possible one of those “weeds” might be a developing pepper plant. Hopefully it’ll be obvious within the next two weeks if there are any peppers popping. Otherwise I’ll have to try planting more and hope for results.
THE GARDEN CORNER SEEDS FROM DOLLARAMA
I’ll provide an update on the surviving seeds and harvesting the crop later this summer.
Do you think this will be the year that I finally coax watermelon to grow? I think this is my lucky year! I didn’t get Covid and I’ve had a few good things happen.
Did you pick up any Garden Corner seeds from Dollarama? What seeds did you buy and how did they grow for you?
Published by Cheryl @ The Lifestyle Digs on May 31, 2021.
FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE:
My rhubarb is a family heirloom.
MORE READING:
Thanks to Covid unemployment in 2020, one of the things I did to keep busy was plant a garden.
I have found some older packets of seeds from dollars a ! I’ve had for quite a few years ! Are they GMO or organic it doesn’t say what they are ! Can you help me out! Thx so much ! Stacey
Hi Stacey. I don’t know for sure. This brand comes from McKenzie seeds which are non-GMO and some are organic. The bigger issue is whether old seeds will sprout. None of my pepper seeds grew.