Seeds for Thought

After considering all that happened in 2014, what has become very clear is that things never go as planned. The best laid plans can get waylaid when "Life" happens. That is one reason that my husband and I live by the motto, "Be Prepared".  For us preparedness is a lifestyle, part of our every day life. So as I consider the coming new year, one of the things I will be looking at is how well prepared we are for whatever 2015 has in store for us.

   I am presently doing  my first "preps" for the new year. I am poring over our new seed catalogs as they arrive in the mail, in preparation for our next round of plantings in the garden. This is vital, since we lean heavily on our gardens to put fresh, organic food on our table. Not only will I need to plan for what we will plant this coming year, but I will also need to consider what seeds I want to purchase for long term storage. Some seeds store better than others, and all seeds have a relatively short storage life, so before I order seeds I will have to consider what seeds we presently have stored for the long term, and rotate them into use for this year, once I have ordered and received replacements for the storage seed.

  I always have a good supply of  turnip seeds, broccoli, cabbages, kale, clover, alfalfa, many different oriental greens, and other similar seeds. I use these seeds for making sprouts for consumption, as well as for sprouting for seedlings to put in the garden, so I keep a large stock on hand. These seeds have a hard coat and generally have a long shelf life if stored properly. I have used broccoli and cabbage seeds that I found in the freezer, 3 years after their use by date and still had good germination. Even though these seeds will last much  longer than one growing season, I try to use my seeds within 2 years of purchase, just to make sure that I don't let them lose their viability. A rule of thumb is, the larger the seed the longer it will remain viable. I have also found that the harder the seed coat the longer they last, but I don't know if that is scientifically proven. Some seeds like lettuce, onion, and carrot seeds have a large drop off in germination from one season to the next. I usually only buy enough of these seeds for the season, plus a small quantity of seed for long term storage, that I can grow out and save the seed from if need be.

  Most seeds that are stored in a cool, dry, oxygen free, moisture free environment will remain viable for years. Even so, I order new seed and rotate my long term stored seeds into my normal sprouting or planting schedule yearly, once the replacement seed has arrived. So at any given time, I have last years seed in the garden this year and I put this years seed in long term storage. I want to have the freshest seed possible should I have to rely on my own stock of seeds, due to crop failure, lack of availability, or extinction.

   The seed that is stored for long term is placed in small mylar bags with oxygen absorbers and is then heat sealed with my Hot Jaws sealer, (an iron will work if you don't have a sealer), then they are labeled and dated. I put the collection of mylar bags of seeds in a 2 gallon plastic bucket with a Gamma lid and keep an inventory list on the outside of the bucket that tells me what seeds are inside. These seeds are then stored with the rest of our LTS buckets, in a cool, dry place.

  Not all the seeds I plant each year are from my LTS cache. I purchase some seed for the present year planting, and put into LTS what isn't used this year. This is usually seeds for tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables that are only planted during the summer months. Each seed packet will contain more seed than I can plant out, so what doesn't get used this year, will be stored in LTS and I will use them along with the new seed I order the following year. That way I don't waste seed, and should there be a lack of seed to purchase the following year, I can still grow out last years seed and save some for the future.

  Once my seed situation is under control, I will move on to inventory our food supplies, make sure the spread sheet that we use to keep track of things is up to date and make note of things that we need to replace. There is always something to be done and every day at Heart's Ease Cottage is a prepping day!