Seeds

[hoodat]

Seed storage and germination can be a vey interesting study. How long a seed can be stored depends on the variety and storage. Some seeds are so short lived they have to be planted within 1 year of being harvested while others will last a long time. Beans are a good example of long lived seed. Anasazi (rattlesnake) beans were found in a pot in a dry cave where they were stored by the Apaches. They were estimated to be well over 100 years old when found but enough of them grew to multiply to the point that they are now quite common and easy to find.
Some seeds need to be stored at cold temps and some at warm. Some seeds will develop a resting period when stored for a long time and may be hard to get to break dormancy. Some of the tree seeds nee over a year to germinate if stored for a long time. There are even seeds in areas where brush and grass fires have been common for a long time that are hard to germinate unless they have been set on fire first. Seeds like those are quite common here in the desert areas of SoCal.

 

[momofdrew]

I read somewhere years ago that there is a vault somewhere in the midwest that stores seeds to keep them safe from "dooms day" or when tshtf which ever comes first but I dont think any seed stored by the average person will last 25 years even if vacuumed packed or freeze dried or what ever... I have had seeds that were 10 years old be 10% viable but I wouldnt want only 10 seeds out of 100 sprout if I needed to sustain my family on them...

 

[Smiles Jr.]

I save seeds every year and have fun with it. It's not a difficult task and the rewards are wonderful. In the last 5 years I have been getting more and more into heirloom seed collecting. Some heirloom varieties are great and some not so much.

Right now I have several small piles of seeds drying in a shallow (1" deep) wooden box that I made for the seeds. I also have several small wooden boxes of bean pods drying. They're supposed to be out in the sun but it's been raining here for days.

If you go to some seed saving websites you can learn how to preserve the different kinds of seeds. Fermenting your tomato seeds is simple so don't let it scare you away. I store all of my seeds in glass containers in our un-heated wood shed so they freeze and thaw just like they would if they were laying on the ground throughout the winter. Glass or metal is important for me as the mice LOVE to devour a hand full of seeds in seconds. One year I put my seeds in labeled envelopes and put the envelopes in a top tray of a steel toolbox out in the barn. I was sure the seeds were safe from the mice in there. Well, at some point during the winter I needed some tools and I left the lid open. Within two days all 200 or more seeds were gone. Live and learn.

Edit . . . I think that it is very important for all of us in the USA to save seeds, learn some survival skills, plan for natural as well as man-made emergencies and disasters, and seriously learn self sufficiency. The morons we have elected to lead our country at all levels of government are complete failures and our system is broken. "We The People" have become so fat and lazy that we choose to sit by and do nothing about it. Hard times are eminent.

 

[hoodat]

Another good reason for saving your own seed is that in any row of plants you will naturally save the seeds from the best producing one. Over the space of a few years you develop a strain of that plant that is just right for your particular garden environment.

 

[digitS']

Just back with a few more links:

Here is Wikipedia's article on Seedbanks. It has a link to information to that King Herod's archeological dig, 'Thistle was talking about.

Be advised that the link to the USDA info on seed banks is a dead end. The USDA website is so d**n complex that I had to go to a U of Wisconsin site to find where the USDA keeps it's germplasm bank. national center for genetic resources preservation (click) You will see in the sidebar there that they are involved with both plants and animals. Kind of fun . . !

I have an advantage of being able to have gardens in more than one location. For saving pepper seed - I don't worry about having them all mixed up in one garden. There are just a few plants of 1 variety at a time in another garden. Pepper seeds have good viability. I can grow 1 variety in my secluded little patch of ground one year and a different variety another year - saving enuf seed from both to hold me thru several years.

Squash readily cross but there are 3 separate species so, they don't all cross. No guarantees that your neighbor isn't growing one in his backyard, however. About the most common cross is between zucchini and pumpkins and the result is quite a mutt! It has been more like a gourd than either of its parents when it has volunteered in my garden.

I think that being connected with other gardeners, some gardens isolated from others, can be very important for someone involved in seed saving. I'm afraid my upwind flour corn crossed a bit with my downwind sweet corn again this year. I'm not trying to save seed from the sweet corn but having some colors other than white and yellow on the ear is a little startling when pulling back the husk!

Steve

ETA: intended to provide this link: Global Seed Vault, NYTimes

 

[April Manier]

The way I see it, the best practice would be to grow them and re-save seed every year or couple of years, as Lesa said. Not JUST because of viability of the seed, but if THE BLEEP DOES hit the fan, well, that HARDLY seems the time to "get to know" a new variety of vegetable and all it's quirks and how BEST to grow it for the highest production. I mean.. when THE BLEEP hits the fan, I want to be an 'ol pro at growing those varieties I plan to live on. Not just growing it, but preserving it and using it in the kitchen too!

I concur.

Being a doomsday girl myself I am just trying to get good at everything.....

Soilent Green...lol

On the serious side, how you harvest and save is important. Heirloom seeds don't last longer necessarily than newer varieties. Some of those varieties may actually be more hardy in some respects. Don't get me wrong, we are heirloom Nazis here on the farm.