I know!

Nice job!


Karen

Looks pretty thorough, too!

Joannabanana, I love it! :D

Congratulations on educating the next generation of gardeners, and giving ATP good publicity.

Do we have enough time to send you seeds to give away? (The best labeling would include small color photos and I have almost none of them handy.)

Many people I talk to think it's cool that OTHER people save and trade seeds. If you had a double-handful of old seed packets that had passed from hand to hand for a few years, they might think it was charming and within their reach.

I hate to give people old seed, though I use them myself. I hate to set someone up for failure. (especially novices to seeds).

I wintersow old seeds often. They make it or they don't, I don't fret about it.

Karen

>> I hate to give people old seed,

That very true, but I was thinking of the "old packets" mostly for display. You know the kind, elegantly folded from pretty paper with GOOD handwriting. Maybe set the 4-year-old ones to one side under a caption "look up this seed's longevity but give away the 2-year-old ones.

Not really being argumentative, but pointing out a mistake I made that worked out well. When I started starting seeds, I seldom worried about the age of seeds and didn't ever think about "start-ification".

So I started some seeds indoors that needed stratification . Really really old seeds! And I got better germination than I expected from fresh annual seeds (in my case, 50%).

Much later I understood that I SHOULD have had very low germination for two reasons. Then I learned that the two mistakes had cancelled out. They were not only pretty long-lived seeds, but their dormancy mechanism faded out faster than the seed viability did.

They had sat around long enough to lose their dormancy but not their viability!

You never know, and sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Always worth trying.

Karen

I NEVER toss seeds just because they're "too old!" Heh heh, I always think about my ancient "Sundrop" tomato seeds, the packet is so old you can't even read the year now, but they're at least 30 years old. A couple of years ago I planted a bunch of them, hoping to at least get a couple of plants. Oh, gee, did I have more little seedlings than I knew what to do with! Must have been at a minimum 60% germination and probably more! And even some over 10 year old basil seeds gave me a few little seedlings, and they're only supposed to be good for a year or two.

Really? Didn't know that about basil. I just direct sow that every year and it grows like a weed.

Karen

Yeah, supposedly most herb seeds are only good for one or two, sometimes three years. And I've *generally* found that to be true. But I always give ANY pack of seeds a chance. Like you said, sometimes you get lucky!

Joanne, when are you able to direct sow your basil?

>> sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Always worth trying.

Great, I'll say "Karen said to try" instead of "I'm just plain STUBBORN".

Picked out my Larkspur varieties, then found out that they are best used within 6 months of harvest. Mine range from 1 to 5 years old. But I agree with Karen:

"Always worth trying."

And then if it doesn't work out, you can say, "It's all Karen's fault!"

(shhhhhhhh)
(wink)



But it is kin d of a kick in the butt for my seed-collecting fetish. I knew I had a few varieties that weren't likely to stay highly viable as long as I'll have them, considering how much garden room I have. But if even big, hard larkspur sees are short-lived, I had better check everything.

Here's a link to a chart for a longevity chart: It give a pretty good guideline
The thread "Seed Longevity Chart" in Seeds forum

One of the local garden centre's has promised to donate their last year left over seed inventory to our seed starter meeting on Saturday afternoon. We usually do a seed swap at the meeting, so this will be a nice bonus

Direct Sow Basil,
Yes I do direct sow it as well as keep a few pots in the greenhouse. Last year I direct sowed basil in-between the tomatoes. The water wells helped keep it a bit warmer for the basil to germinate and grow. Our nights remain quite chilly until end of June

Thanks, Joanne.

You know, I have that link, but I never scrolled down past the crops into the flowers!

Darn!

Delphinium - 1
Salvia - - - - 1
Viola - - - - 1

Sweet William - - 1-2
Larkspur - - - - 1-2
Lupine - - - - 1-2

Penstemon - - - - 2
Centaurea - - - 1-3
Petunia - - - - 2-3

I think I'll be sowing 3-4 seeds into each cell this spring! And I'll find out how good my storage methods have been.

Well, I think they're wrong about Lupines. I had a bag of seeds a friend had just snatched off some local plants and it sat around for at least 3 years before I got around to trying them. Almost 100% germination rate, and they were most definitely NOT stored in optimal conditions! (Sitting in a plastic grocery bag on my back porch that roasts you in the summer and freezes in the winter!)