Saving Seeds From Year To Year?

[Zeedman]

@Zeedman , this is probably a good place to ask.

I was recently looking through a thread on another forum. The sub-forum was on winter sowing. I know next to nothing about this subject. It has to do with starting seed in the winter, with minimum protection under a cloche or something like it. Many weeks may be needed before the seed germinates. (It's kinda the opposite of using a heat mat .)

Those gardeners doing winter sowing seem to be enthusiastic about suitable varieties or, maybe, just encouraging others with seed exchanges. @Zeedman is this method of starting seed something that you are experienced with?

Steve

There was a poster on another forum who was a long-time advocate of winter sowing for a wide variety of seeds. She had a lot of followers who swore by those methods... but I never intentionally tried that with vegetable seed. That person stopped posting, but she also has a winter sowing website (I'm not sure how current it is):
WinterSown

The only times I've tried winter sowing was with seed which requires cold stratification (such as Martynia, Siberian Pea Shrub, and Honey Locust). I unintentionally winter-sow ground cherry, tomatillo, Zebrina mallow, and Martynia by just allowing some of the many volunteers to grow where they are out of the way.

 

[flowerbug]

Does this mean pea seeds can last 111 years with a 50% germination rate if stored at those temp's? If this is true, that would be incredibly good news for pea savers like me. They have the 2nd highest P50 of all listed crops.

Pea

.71

.66

.04

97

111

that's what that chart does mean. i'm psyched about this spring pea planting which i hope to get started in the next few weeks. just have to figure out where...


it does make me sad though to see that beans are not all that great for the longer term in the freezer. i'd hope that they'd last much longer than that.

 

[heirloomgal]

that's what that chart does mean. i'm psyched about this spring pea planting which i hope to get started in the next few weeks. just have to figure out where...


it does make me sad though to see that beans are not all that great for the longer term in the freezer. i'd hope that they'd last much longer than that.

I was so wanting to plant my peas, that I've already planted about 10 planters with them. My first container sprouted today! Yay! If the weather cools off, I'll be able to move them indoors. There sure is something to be said for growing one's own saved pea seeds. My own always sprout way faster than first year trials from seed companies.

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

There was a poster on another forum who was a long-time advocate of winter sowing for a wide variety of seeds. She had a lot of followers who swore by those methods... but I never intentionally tried that with vegetable seed. That person stopped posting, but she also has a winter sowing website (I'm not sure how current it is):
WinterSown

The only times I've tried winter sowing was with seed which requires cold stratification (such as Martynia, Siberian Pea Shrub, and Honey Locust). I unintentionally winter-sow ground cherry, tomatillo, Zebrina mallow, and Martynia by just allowing some of the many volunteers to grow where they are out of the way.

Looks like they have a FB group too:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wintersown/

I know people that do this for prairie seeds for sure, but not veggies

 

[flowerbug]

I was so wanting to plant my peas, that I've already planted about 10 planters with them. My first container sprouted today! Yay! If the weather cools off, I'll be able to move them indoors. There sure is something to be said for growing one's own saved pea seeds. My own always sprout way faster than first year trials from seed companies.

our last frost date is sometime after May 5th so a few weeks before that is usually ok for some peas that you know can handle it. since i'm not sure these can handle it i'm going to stagger plant them in two batches a week or so apart in two areas and hope that at least one of them will work out. plus keep some of my seeds in reserve. i need to get these seeds grown out more but the pods are so good to eat that it is hard to leave a lot of them for seeds. at least this season i don't have any promises to send any back so i can hoard them like the little seed piggy that i am...

 

[heirloomgal]

our last frost date is sometime after May 5th so a few weeks before that is usually ok for some peas that you know can handle it. since i'm not sure these can handle it i'm going to stagger plant them in two batches a week or so apart in two areas and hope that at least one of them will work out. plus keep some of my seeds in reserve. i need to get these seeds grown out more but the pods are so good to eat that it is hard to leave a lot of them for seeds. at least this season i don't have any promises to send any back so i can hoard them like the little seed piggy that i am...

You could try starting them in cell packs, though I know that is a bit of pain. Last year I planted peas mid May and we got an out of the blue dump of snow a couple days later. They were covered for nearly a week like that. Shockingly, nearly every variety sprouted when it warmed back up again except for the wrinkled seeded, sweet varieties. If your seeds are smooth they can withstand the cold better, less moisture accumulation in the folds.

 

[ducks4you]

Date Seed of Masada Is Oldest Ever to Sprout (Published 2008)

An ancient date palm seed retrieved from the rubble of Masada is the oldest seed ever to sprout, scientists reported.

www.nytimes.com

Dark and dry keeps all seeds fresher. If you live where I live that is hard, bc we have so much humidity.
Still, I have 2yrs+ tomato seeds that I started on the cold porch, south ledge, in a fish tank with a glass lid. Looks like most of them have sprouted.
I once sprouted 35 yo tomato seeds. It tooks weeks for them to sprout. I didn't babysit them well enough to survive, but they were an inch tall at their death.
Old seeds will often take longer to come out of their hibernation.

 

[flowerbug]

You could try starting them in cell packs, though I know that is a bit of pain. Last year I planted peas mid May and we got an out of the blue dump of snow a couple days later. They were covered for nearly a week like that. Shockingly, nearly every variety sprouted when it warmed back up again except for the wrinkled seeded, sweet varieties. If your seeds are smooth they can withstand the cold better, less moisture accumulation in the folds.

i keep it simple here as i can so i'll just watch the weather and stick them in the gardens when it looks like they'll have a good enough chance.

it is rare i lose any planting here due to the weather, more often the problem is critters.

 

[Zeedman]

Does this mean pea seeds can last 111 years with a 50% germination rate if stored at those temp's? If this is true, that would be incredibly good news for pea savers like me. They have the 2nd highest P50 of all listed crops.

Pea

.71

.66

.04

97

111

It was in the middle of replying to this post that my hard drive crashed. With a new drive, and all relevant programs now reloaded, I'll try this ONE MORE TIME...

To maybe put those numbers into perspective, that is (a) assuming perfect storage conditions, and (b) the numbers are an average of all varieties tested. It has been my observation that soup peas have a longer storage life than wrinkled shelling peas. SSE probably has a larger proportion of soup peas in their collection than would have been tested in the "industry standard", which may account for SSE's higher calculated P50.

Taking those very rosy predictions with a grain of salt, if we are able to get even half that storage life, we would still be saving some pea seeds no more than twice in our lifetime. I grow quite a few heirloom soup peas, so assuming I start freezing them, I could maintain more varieties - even if fewer were grown each year to improved purity.

 

[heirloomgal]

It was in the middle of replying to this post that my hard drive crashed. With a new drive, and all relevant programs now reloaded, I'll try this ONE MORE TIME...

To maybe put those numbers into perspective, that is (a) assuming perfect storage conditions, and (b) the numbers are an average of all varieties tested. It has been my observation that soup peas have a longer storage life than wrinkled shelling peas. SSE probably has a larger proportion of soup peas in their collection than would have been tested in the "industry standard", which may account for SSE's higher calculated P50.

Taking those very rosy predictions with a grain of salt, if we are able to get even half that storage life, we would still be saving some pea seeds no more than twice in our lifetime. I grow quite a few heirloom soup peas, so assuming I start freezing them, I could maintain more varieties - even if fewer were grown each year to improved purity.

If you feel inclined I'd love to hear a little about the varieties of heirloom soup peas you grow. Or any of the peas you might be growing. This is a big pea year for me, lots of new trials starting up here. So far Gold Harvest and Prussian Blue have sprouted.

Thank you for trying again ☺