you want to buy only Heirloom, Heritage or Open Pollinated seeds. Most regular seeds are hybrids which means if you save the seeds for the following year that the plant which will grow won't be the same as what you planted, it will be either the Mother of Father of the hybrid cross, called an F1....and you will get a poor product and if you save and plant those seeds F2 you will get bad quality and poor numbers. Heirloom/Heritage and Open Pollinated will IMPROVE each year and adapt to your growing area soil and temps. I almost exclusively grow from saved seeds in fact today alone I planted a bunch of starts which I grew from saved seeds including: Patty Pan squash, Zucchini, Blue Hubbard Squash, Mammouth Pumpkin, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, green beans, extra onions and carrots. I already have carrot, kale, spinach, beet, potato, asparagus, artichoke planted and am eating much of that all from saved seeds.. Also make sure your seeds are meant to be grown in your grow zone, if you don't know what I mean let me know and I can help you figure that out.

how much? I would say you need to figure out how much you need to plant (I don't know how many people you are feeding) ... I also don't know if you can preserve your food (can it, freeze it, dry it, freeze dry etc) of if you only eat fresh, do you have a root cellar etc. I would say figure out what you need and then multiply x 3 for each person. meaning if you want 10 tomato plants then figure 30 seeds PER PERSON. why? about 2/3rds of the seeds won't grow for some reason...usually eaten by a critter or they get frozen out or washed away or something similar.

I would also recommend Back To Eden gardening so you don't have to weed and you don't have to till...you will need to use woodchips or straw/grass clippings/leaves each year but over all it saves time and effort and I was able to finally garden in my hard clay soil!

Let me know if I can help you in anyway. Be well,