I really enjoyed this and learned some great tips! SRN
By FARMERIK
http://www.seedforsecurity.com/
I keep getting this question emailed to me over and over again, asked in slightly different ways.
In my article about Long term Seed storage I explain how thoroughly
dry seeds may be frozen, for really long term storage. See the Related
Article section below for details.
All of my estimates for cool dry seed storage times in this article
have been compared to reliable sources, like my favorite seed saving
book
Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth, other books and information from various State Agriculture Schools.
We don't sell any 'magic seeds'. How long seeds last in cool, dry
storage conditions is controlled by the crop itself. Onions, parsnips,
and lettuce only have good germination rates for one year. Carrots,
leeks and chives seed should still grow for two or three years.
For seeds like these with the shortest shelf life, I recommend buying
new packets on a regular basis. They will not be that expensive at a
high quality seed company. Check the links below to find reliable
sources. I am sure there are others too. Watch out for discount seed
companies with 'tabloid' like catalogs. They may offer older seed which
would be fine for that year, but not to store.
I also noticed several companies selling 'garden seeds in a can'
which include some short lived seed varieties. There is no magic way to
keep onion seeds for ten or twenty years. Some seed canners claim the
amount of seeds they include will plant a very large garden. Well, that
depends on how closely they plant their seeds.
Very wide spacing can
greatly exaggerate the planted area. If you already grow a large garden,
you will know what you want to plant. If you don't, you would be much
better off to start small so you can learn how to garden. Think about
each kind of vegetable seed they offer. Ask yourself, if I was really
hungry, would I want to eat radishes, watermelons, and cucumbers? How
much lettuce and string beans would I plant? If I am gardening by hand,
or with limited amounts of fuel, how much space would I give to crops
like those?
Others claim you may open a large can of seeds and plant some each
year. I guess you could. It would be safer to have your seeds sealed
and stored in amounts you would actually plant each year. Often the
claim is made that since all the seeds in the can they sell are open
pollinated, you may save your own seeds forever more. In a way that is
true, but each kind of seed is saved a little differently, and it will
take a number of years to learn how to save each kind reliably. Start
with the most important crops, not a big variety pack! To learn how to
save your own seeds,I like the information at the International
Seed Saving Institute, ISSI in the links below.
Our Garden Security Collections include reasonable amounts of seeds.
25 Squash and 25 Pumpkin seeds will plant 5 hills of each, and we
harvest about 10 of our squash or pumpkins from each hill. That is
roughly the main dish for 100 family meals. In a new garden, your yield
may be less. Some companies include hundreds of squash and pumpkin
seeds. This helps them claim the collection they sell will plant a huge
area. Rows of field pumpkins and winter squash are often planted 20 feet
apart. Our dry beans and corn seeds are offered in balanced amounts
to be served together for complete protein meals. We offer both
earlier and later harvested crops. Our collections can be planted in a
reasonable size garden which can be maintained with hand tools. As you
learn more about growing these crops, you can double the size of your
garden each year. At first you will need to have some other sources of
food. No one becomes a successful gardener in one or two years. By
starting with these carefully selected varieties, a beginner can grow a
lot of food. We learn and try new things every year and so should you.
Another thing I should point out about the large seed collections in a
can is that many kinds of seed will cross pollinate. They will give
you some sort of hybrid mongrel crop seed. For example, Swiss Chard and
Beets are in the same family and would cross. If you saved seeds from
your Swiss Chard, some of them may try to form a bulbous root like a
beet. What is that going to taste like? Will it keep in a root cellar
for months like beets? Who knows. The seeds will be randomly crossed,
not an intentional hybrid with predictable results.
There are four major families of Squash. The Pepo group includes
zucchini squash, yellow summer squash (like crook neck), Acorn squash
and pumpkins. You can only produce true seed by growing one variety
from each group at a time. Our Waltham Butternut squash is in the
Moschata group, and will not cross with our pumpkins. We choose the
Waltham because it keeps the longest of any winter squash. Our Sugar
pumpkin was chosen because it is sweet and small enough size to cook and
serve for one meal. Field pumpkins are mostly for decoration, and take
up a lot of garden space. Summer squash is nice, but Winter squash and
Pumpkins keep for months. You can
grow them all to eat the same
year, but the seeds inside your fruit will have crossed if more than one
variety from each of the four groups is grown. Next year, planting
those new seeds you saved will result in various hybrid combinations.
Who knows how they would taste or if they would keep.
Broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage are in the same family. Since
cabbage can be harvested over a long period and keeps, we chose both
early and late varieties. Compare the food in one head of cabbage to the
food in a head of broccoli or cauliflower. If you are hungry, which one
would you grow? Once you add broccoli or cauliflower into the mix, you
have to watch out for all of these crops cross pollinating.
Another example of how little these people know about saving seeds is
to offer several varieties of the same crop. If you grow more than one
variety of tomato, they will cross pollinate, and you will no longer
have seeds to collect for each variety. Unless you carefully choose
crops which pollinate at different times. For corn, read my
Corn is King article. It contains information about how we choose two varieties which tassel out at different times.
Before we decide to offer a variety of seed, we research all these problems. We don't offer seeds in our collections which
will
cross. Beans are self pollinating, so it is safe to grow different
varieties. String beans contain almost no calories or protein. Consider
them to be a weight loss diet vegetable you may enjoy. Shell beans eaten
in the soft immature stage later in the summer do have some calories,
but like sweet corn, the protein has not formed in the food yet. Our
collection includes only beans which can be raised to full maturity,
when they will contain protein. Two of them are dual purpose beans.
Provider Beans can be repeatedly picked as a string bean, and will keep
producing pods. Later in the Fall, they mature and dry to save as seed
or a nice baking bean. Some of your French Horticulture Shell bean
plants can be left to mature for additional baking beans as well as for
seed.
I am suggesting that you think through all the claims being made by others. Think about the foods you will really
need
to eat. They are sources of calories, like root crops, grains and
Winter squash and pumpkins, and dry beans for protein. Remember a wise
saying, If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
We offer large economical paper packets of
Beets,
Spinach,
Early Cabbage and
Late Cabbage. They are easy to grow, and can be harvested over a long period of time. These seeds keep about four or five years. Our
Butternut Squash and
Sugar Pumpkins
are available in paper packets. They should last six years in cool dry
conditions. We have added new varieties of seeds offered in paper
packets too.
For the longest keeping seeds, five to ten years or more, we offer seeds sealed in foil pouches. This includes
Our Garden Security Collection,
Our Garden Bean Collection, and two small grains.
Hulless Oats and
Rye.
These have been carefully dried and a desiccant packet has been added.
They are properly prepared for even longer storage in your refrigerator.
In your freezer they will last much longer, like Grampa Neff's beans,
which were frozen for 22 years before we planted them in our 2007
garden.
When we choose which kinds of crops to offer seeds for, we look at
several factors. Is it it easy and reliable to grow? Can it be harvested
over a long period of time? Will it store without a lot of equipment?
Will it be an important part of our nutrition? If it will cross
pollinate with other crops, which of those is the most important kind to
grow?
For example, carrots, parsnips and beets are all root crops which can
provide calories. Only beets have edible tops to harvest during the
summer. They are easier to grow, and the seeds keep longer in storage
too. We chose to offer them first. That is not to say you shouldn't grow
the other two, it just that beets have advantages over them.
We always grow tomatoes and peppers. Nan starts them very carefully
indoors weeks before they can be set out in our garden. They need both
artificial heat and light in our climate to grow into transplants. The
harvested fruit must be frozen, canned or dried, so we need equipment
and fuel to do that. We love these food crops, but if times were really
difficult, we might not be able to start the plants or keep the harvest.
We have chosen the very reliable Beefsteak Tomato seed to offer in
paper packets. It is early ripening for a good sized slicer. Harvests
are large for preserving too. We get about a bushel per plant in an
average year in Connecticut. Because tomatoes cross pollinate, you must
choose only one variety if you want to be able to save your own seeds.
Asparagus makes a nice permanent bed to be harvested for many years
to come. Growing asparagus plants from seed is a very complicated task.
It takes between three and five years before you will get your first
harvest. The seeds need soil temperatures between 70 and 80 degrees for
about two and a half weeks to germinate, and then they need to be moved
into full sun. Our temperatures are much too unpredictable here in New
England for that without some thermostatically controlled source of
heat. If you want to specialize in it, it could be a Cottage Industry
for you, but it is not a skill I would spend a lot of time mastering for
my own garden. Once you buy crowns and set them out, you will be able
to harvest them for 20 years or more.
It was practical considerations like these which led us to choose the
crops we sell seeds for. We plan to continue to offer more varieties.
We sell important food crops, which are harvested at different times of
the year, or stored for Winter. They are all easy to grow. Our life long
interest in Homesteading, and more than 25 years of experience on our
farm here has taught which varieties really are more important.
A dust bath can be as simple as an area of the yard where the birds
have worn the grass away and only dirt survives, but providing
additional ingredients can offer your birds even more pleasure. The most
desired materials for a dust bath are sand, dirt and sifted wood ash.
Many people feel the wood ash also helps prevent fleas and other bugs
from moving in on the birds’ feathers.