What do you do with your left over seeds?

[obsessed]

Just wondering. Cause the seed packets come with like 200 carrots for example and I never use the whole packets. Do you save them and use them next season?

 

[vfem]

I trade them for something I want or need, or sell them on craigslist for a couple extra bucks!

 

[obsessed]

Dang, that sounds like work.

 

[Catalina]

I save them. Your germination might not be as great, but it's OK.

Also, you could do staggered plantings through out the year.

 

[farmerlor]

As long as you keep the seeds cool and dry they should keep successfully for up to five years (they've just grown seeds they found in the desert that may have been 2000 years old). I take my seeds after planting and put them in a ziploc bag and store them away. Some people put them in the freezer or fridge but I've never had any problem with seeds just kept in a bag in the closet.

 

[Patch of Heaven Farm]

I keep seeds that I will plant a second crop of but I try to buy with a friend or family member and we just half the seeds or I will buy one year or season and they buy the next year or season. If I try something new and find out I don't like it I will donate the seeds.

 

[me&thegals]

Share, use in successive planting through the season or save for the next year.

 

[curly_kate]

I reuse pill bottles and film canisters (yes, I still use a camera with film in it! ) and put the seeds in there. For what I can, I try to reseed, and then hang on to them until next year. So far, I've had pretty good germination from older seeds.

 

[2468Gardeningisgr8]

I brown paper bag seeds from my garden ....friend and famlies gardens ...strangers gardens...etc etc....every couple years I clean up my tons of brown paper bags by either scattering them in my MIL country ditches/or ours or along the trails out back or make a new garden or when I have a garage sale I sell them ....

 

[blossom]

I have been sticking the extra seeds, still in their packets into ziplock sandwich bags and sticking into a popcorn tin (the kind that already popped comes in). I went through it this year and as a lark, planted some tomato seeds that were packed for the 1996 season. Well, I now have some very leggy seedlings of Rutgers Select and Heatwave Hybrid tomatoes growing on the enclosed back porch. So, if kept dry, seeds do have a much longer shelf life than we have been led to believe. I'll probably put these plants into the garden just to see how well they produce. Oh, I do not have a grow light nor bottom heat on the pots they are planted in. Probably why they are so very leggy.