Planting older seeds

lately ( every paycheck ) I've been going down to whole foods and buying sprouting seeds. Mung Beans, Lentils, Barley etc...

they have a HUGE selection of bulk items and seeds, just for sprouting or making Wheat Grass...

One trick I learned for increasing germination rates is to give the seeds a soak in Super Thrive before planting. It's made by the Vitamin Institute and is pure magic on starting seeds...

it will INDEED revive lots of seeds right at the edge of not germinating...

Circumstances do arise where it is important to discard all the older seeds even if the germination rate is reasonably high, this is because they tend to lack vigour. Conversely, sometimes it is important to plant old seed because seed collection of the survivors injects extra storage time viability into the gene pool.

I've used the same for when I've grown something other than vegetables. Works great. I also used 10 year old seeds, and some of them sprouted and produced beautiful potent plants.

SuperThrive is a fantastic product and highly recommended, but even without it, don't be afraid to experiment with old seeds, you may have excellent results. I've grown whole gardens from all kinds of old seeds before. I'm sure it wasn't much different than if they were new seeds.

Certainly don't throw them out without trying.

A lot of new gardeners have the idea that you have to start everything indoors in pots under lights first before you plant them outside. I would avoid that as much as possible and plant seeds directly in the ground. You'd be amazed what you can grow by just sticking the seed in the ground where you want it to grow, if the soil is well prepared and rich.

I don't know for sure if a hobby gardener saves money by starting their own tomato and pepper plants either. If you're just starting out you are better off buying plants, they're cheap and will do better if you don't know what you're doing.

The key to gardening is having really good soil.

That's the main most important thing. If you have really good soil your plants will grow.

And mulching to smother the weeds, that will conserve water and protect the roots too.

really good soil, and mulch, and a willingness to experiment, you're all set.

[link to www.amazon.com]

"Seed to Seed" is an amazing book

It has detailed instructions for saving seed from every imaginable type of veggie, as well as growing tips for producing the best seed.

I have experimented with collecting seed from several types of corn grown close together. It is a bit trickey to ensure that the types don't cross-pollenate. It was definately a learning experience.

Saving tomato seeds is fun too. They have to almost ferment, then get dried out.

I knows how to grows but am no expert at seeds how I need to be.

Links!!! :rainbow: TY.

The seeds in the Iceland mountain seed vault would be interesting how they plan to keep their seeds viable for a long time

any ideas on that?

Those are all GM/ GE seed. I don't think they are even able to last but one year. Hence the reason they do such engineering and vaulting. Those vault seeds have no reproduction ability I mean. The Norway island was funded by Monsanto chemical company and syngenta Global and Bill gates. Nothing more than so they get to hike prices by patented seed.

huh, weird but that makes me feel better about 'seed island' lol

Can someone rec a book or give a noob some tips. I'm going to destroy my grass using the newspaper method & put dirt over it. Should I put some peat moss in with the dirt or what? I'm totally new to this :(

You can BET that any PURE seed WILL be as currency .

know that .

So far I haven't had any problem growing old seeds, it's just they don't all sprout... but don't throw them away!

Recently, someone gave me a bag of Anazazi beans and there was a story attached to the bag about their origin. I cooked them and they were really good, better than pinto, I think.

I did a little searching and thought to add this:

Imagine it. A cave, nearly hidden, high inside a glacier-carved, wind-sanded canyon wall in New Mexico. Outside the cave, the sun has scorched everything to red; inside it’s cool, dark, and quiet. The only sounds are those you and your fellow archeologists make as you gently scrape the sugar-dusted sandstone walls, each echo stirring up memories that can’t possibly belong to you, of times when ice sheets groaned their way across the belly of this canyon.

On the underside of a ledge protruding from a dusty wall, your knuckles rake gravel and clay and then, something more deliberate. Its purposeful shape catches your senses, and you gently pull it out. It’s a tiny pot, formed from the clay of these very walls.

It’s sealed tightly, impossibly, with tar. Later, you’ll learn that it’s pine pitch, but for now you struggle to pry the beaded, rocklike substance off. It must have been here a very long time.

At last and with a weary, crackling sound, the tar gives and the pot’s lid slides sideways. Three pebbles tumble into your open palm. They are an oblong shape, speckled with white and mahogany spots, and unlike any of the stones you’ve encountered in this desert terrain. But no, not pebbles. They’re seeds. Bean seeds.

The seed found in that clay pot was ferried to a lab, where carbon dating revealed that it had been sitting in that high, dry enclave in the desert for nearly 1,500 years. The seed’s finder, always pushing the envelope, hid one in her pocket. Later, she did exactly what this bean’s original cultivators did, the only thing there was to do: she planted it.

It grew.

And from this leap of faith came the seed crop that today I’m nurturing in my garden, and the seeds that we’re having in our chili sans carne.

This is one version of how the Anasazi cave bean was rescued as it dangled from the bridge of extinction. Some believe that this is merely apocryphal, but I’ve always believed it was true. Seeds are like that.

And now it seems that there’s reason for belief.

Recently, news sources carried a story about a 2,000-year-old date palm seed. Recovered from the ancient Jewish fortress of Masada near the Dead Sea, it has become the oldest seed in the world to have germinated successfully.

The seed was found with two others during archeological excavations in the 1960s. Radiocarbon dating showed that the seeds were formed sometime between 206BC and AD24. To put this in perspective, that was just before the Romans laid siege to Masada in AD72.

The seed was stored for two decades, and recently, as part of a science experiment of sorts, it was planted. It’s now a fledging tree, just four inches tall and sporting five palmate leaves (a sixth was removed for DNA testing).
[link to beckyandthebeanstock.com]

strange how each story had three seeds...

From the Ozark Seed Exchange:
[link to www.ozarkseedexchange.com]

free: An Inter-Active Gardener’s Tote Book
First Edition, June 2005

I think most seeds are hydroponic worthy. I have not tried them yet.

I have seeds that were sealed in tin cans in the 1940's. They are various vegetables, lettuce etc. I also was wondering if it was worth my while opening them and trying to grow them, or if I should just keep them as oddities.

Break them out and try it! Let us know what happens, this is important! You could save the can but plant the seeds and spread the knowledge!

Thank GOD the seeds work it was what perhaps GOD intended Let the REAL seeds grow Amen to tht !!!! Thank You GOD! REAL SEEDS do GROW! Amen I am thinking perhaps most positive ! Do you think thats what GOD intended???? Like maybe some grow some don't ???? thinking of what JESUS said some lay by the wayside or in thorn bushes????? Perhaps he was most correct! amen

Grow some of all your kinds every year so you always have some fresh. I tell on my free food thread how to bag your flower buds and hand pollinate them to keep your strains pure. You can grow as many varieties as you want in a small space and preserve as many varieties as you want.

My wife bought some "Indian corn" a ta fair about 20 yrs ago, I was rummaging through the garage attic last spring and came across them, i was going to throw them out but decided to plant some from an Aztec black ear, now mind you, these things were on the cob, stored in a unheated Garage attic,where it gets -20 occasionally in the winter and well over 100 in the summer, along with the fact i live one mile from a great lake and the humidity is very high in summer, all five seeds grew into healthy plants that produced 8-10 inch ears of corn.

I came across some cherry tomato seeds my dad had saved from 10 years earlier. I planted them. They grew like crazy!

Use 'em!
I've sprouted and (or simply) planted seeds that had been hauled around for 10+ years and stored under durn near the worst of conditions... Lower germination rate, yes, but no total failures.
In fact, I've had lower germination (and weird results) from more of my recent purchases than any of my old stock. Strange that.

i know this is a bit long, but this is my experience as a newbie gardener last year. i would also like to confirm this w/ those gardeners who have more experience. sorry to post on your message, but i also just found a pack of seeds that i've had hiding for well over 5 years, so I'm curious.

last year my mil and i started gardening. i planted seeds spread apart from each other, while my mil planted them close together in rows. i was trying to avoid transplanting. hers sprouted nicely, while i was seething w/ envy because mine barely sprouted. i couldn't figure out why this happened and all she did was boast. "I've always had a hand for gardening." (eyes rolling.) so i decided to do what she did. i planted the seeds close together in rows and voila! most of them sprouted. so my mil does not have the "golden touch" like she thought she did.

so my idea is that i think when they're closer together, they seem to have their own communication that sends some sort of a signal to the others. i thought it was interesting and i'm going to do an experiment this summer to find out if it's true.

what are the board's thoughts on this?

If they can germinate a saffron seed laid dormant in an Egyptian grave for thousands of years then I would worry too much about several years.

Everytime I turn my soil, it brings up weed seeds from decades past.

Life finds a way. Why the seed is the blueprint of life.

I think you have the right attitude to be a good gardener because it's all a big experiment and it's good to try new things and learn from your mistakes.

However my technique would be more toward your first thought, of planting them farther apart so that you don't have to thin them. That's how I would do it. It would conserve the seed and save work too.

We need Razrin's help on this one!