Personally, I’m no gardener, and don’t know a thing about gardening, but... I wonder if anyone here knows this: Those seeds you buy in the gardening shop - the ones in the little envelopes for vegetables such as carrots, potatotes, corn,tomatoes and so on - how long will they keep and be viable when stored away in the closet?
I harvest seeds for stuff I use. The seeds I store also last about a year. It's a half life kind of thing.
First year is 75-80%, 2nd year is about 50%, much less on the third year.
I'm very pessemistic about storing seed. Especially commercial seed that's not from my garden that I processed.
/johnny
Buy heirloom seeds. Hybrid varieties are made for the current growing season and second generation plant will have poor yields, if any at all.
Seeds are odd beasts at the best of times.
Those packaged seeds will last for years. I have some going on 10 years and still strong. You will get some drop-off in the number that germinate, but I plant 2 per spot anyway, and end up fine. Never throw away old seeds unless they’re moldy or sprouted.
I have a list somewhere that tells the average viability of most seeds. Corn is the shortest at 2 years. Most others range between 3-6 years, but the time can be lengthened with vacuum pack and freezing.
Course those long term survival seeds you see advertised are another story. I only plant heirlooms, and I save my seed each year. I also order at the end of year sales when they have the combo packs really cheap.
Well, they have cultivated the beans found in the Mesa Verde ruins, they are called Anasazi beans and they were about 500 to 800 years old. If you keep them, keep them cool and dry. You will lose some percentage in the germination but some of them will still be viable after many years.
Dollar Tree usually has some basic seeds that are open-pollinated every spring at 4 for $1.
In my area gardening is one of the best ways to obtain meat.
My good friends wife wanted a garden but our soil is sandy so, being a good husband, he had 4 dump trucks of topsoil delivered. The deer love her beans! The squirrels and rabits too. He built a six foot fence the folowwing year and watched them jump over it with ease. The next spring he raised it to 12 feet and was able to enjoy veggies that cost thousands of dollars a plate. Sadly, his bride was opposed to hunting...
It varies quite a bit, depending on the variety and how it was stored. Somewhere there was a website that had the life expectancy for various seeds, but i can’t seem to find it right now. Some, I believe beets are one, have such a short lifespan that it’s best to assume they’re dead after a year. Others, like amaranth, can sit in the ground 40 years waiting for conditions to be right. There are stories of archeological digs finding seeds in pottery jars that still sprouted and grew after being there for centuries.
Still, most seeds keep best if kept dry and cool. Some keep their seeds in the freezer to extend their life.