Foodstamps will buy Plants and Seeds

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.foodista.com/blog/2011/04/29/foodstamps-will-buy-plants-and-seeds/

Did you know that your foodstamp benefits will buy plants and seeds to grow your own food! Every year, this comes up as an urban ledgend, but I am here to set you straight. Right from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service website:

Seeds and plants which produce food for the household to eat.

Now is a great time to go buy both of them! Turn a few dollars worth of seeds, into food for the whole gardening season. For more on how to start your own garden on the cheap, see my site at herbgardens.about.com.

[eShirl]

1. I have seeds for cherry tomatoes, leaf lettuce and cilantro

and empty food containers suitable for planting
but no potting soil

[GKirk]

2. Want me to mail you some dirt?

Or do you just need to know where you can buy some?

[eShirl]

3. lol

:rofl: getting some next week, but thanks :D

[GKirk]

5. Now I gotta take

the stamps off the Miracle Grow Potting Mix. :)

[Lyric]

4. Yep! We're buying some extra tomato plants with ours.

:hi:

[GKirk]

6. Back to the serious side

this is a good thing.

[Snoutport]

13. Can you buy canning supplies with EBT? Imagine if a city put in a program that allowed

people to get cheap or free canning supplies--and maybe classes in canning. People could eat all year off of three tomato plants and ten bean plants if they knew how to can.

[GKirk]

16. I'm guessing not...

...much like you can't buy Zip Lock bags to store your leftovers in.

And BTW one zuchinni plant can feed an entire neighborhood. :)

[nc4bo]

7. People should be made aware of this fact!!! Sometimes even the cashiers don't know

about it.

Was at Walmart and bought a bunch of garlic, potato, asparagus and onion sets, got up to the register and while talking to the cashier, she sorta stankeyed that a woman came in and bought a couple cases of potato sets, etc. and paid for it with her EBT card.

I told the lady that this was a good thing, she'll be feeding her family and getting more for her benefit dollar and Walmart should put a sign up in the garden section reminding people that foods stamps can be used to purchase seeds, etc.

Went over like a sack of bricks though...........

Sing it loud!!

[GKirk]

11. Stankeyed?

Does that mean she made a big stink about it?

[nc4bo]

12. Yea - the look on her face did all the talking.

I don't think she liked that this woman could do that with her food stamps. I assume a food stamp user would get the same look if they bought a leg of lamb, a steak or some shrimp with their EBT card.

You know the look.

[QED]

8. There is no sales tax on seeds

and a lower sales tax on vegetable plants.

[Retrograde]

14. This varies from state to state

California has no sales tax on vegetable and most herb plants.

[GKirk]

15. Does that include

medicinal herbs? :)

[Retrograde]

17. In CA, it's plants "grown for human comsumption"

Medicinal herbs are a gray category: I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say for sure, but in my experience plants like basil or oregano come under the exempt category, marginal ones like catnip don't. I suppose you could try to argue with the cashier. I don't know what the rules are in Michigan - when I lived there in the 70s all groceries were taxed.

[GKirk]

18. I wasn't thinking about...

...oregano or basil. More like an 'herb' that I might mix in with my brownies. :)

[kestrel91316]

9. I suspect this is why so many grocery stores here in Los Angeles carry vegetable seeds.

Because otherwise, why would they bother? It seems such an anachronism here, producing one's OWN FOOD!! Gasp!!!

Maybe it's a requirement? If it's not, it should be: you accept food stamps? You carry food seeds!

[Mnemosyne]

10. K&R for more visibility. n/t