garden | seed viability

maybe I'm a little too excited... Have you ever been so excited about doing something that you plow straight ahead in your planning until you realize that you forgot one significant detail that brings your whole plan to a screeching halt? Not since my seventh grade roller skating party debacle (uhm... you can't really make plans to go roller skating with your friends when your leg is in a cast... that fact seemed to slip from everyone's mind when planning the party), have I slipped up this bad. I was SO excited to start my onion seeds this weekend that I transformed my entire dining room into my green room. Yes, this involves actually removing our dining table from the room and replacing it with growing shelves and grow lights (my kind family plays nicely with my gardening obsession). I then sterilized my seed trays, sifted through my seed starting soil, and labeled the plant markers. It was then, and only then, that I realized the hole in my master scheme... uhm, my seed order from Fedco hasn't been delivered yet, sooooo, I have no actually onion seeds to plant. Foiled again! So I am now staring manically out the window in hopes of pouncing on my poor mail person in hopes that she is bearing a little brown box of seed happiness this morning.

So, long story short, this brings me to the lesson of seed viability. If it were any other vegetables, I could have started with my seeds from last year, but onions have the shortest seed viability. On average, these seeds only have a shelf life of one year.

How about the rest of your seeds, how long do they last? Well, here's an easy reference list to keep on hand: (by the way, don't forget to test out your germination rate by placing 10 seeds on a damp paper towel and place in a zip locked plastic bag and put in a warm area. you'll be able to figure out the rate of germination by the number of seeds that have sprouted. If 7 out of 10 seeds sprouted, then your germination rate is 70%. That's a number you'll want to keep in mind when planting out your seeds.)

Seed Viability

beans, includes bush, pole, dry and soy beans = 2-3 years

beets = 3-5 years

broccoli = 3-5 years

brussel sprouts = 3-5 years

carrots = 2-3 years

cucumbers = 5-10 years

leeks = 1 year

lettuce = 2-3 years

onions = 1 year

peas, includes shell, snap and snow peas = 2-3 years

peppers = 2-3 years

pumpkins = 2-5 years

radishes = 3-5 years

scallions = 1 year

spinach = 2-3 years

squash, both summer and winter = 2-5 years

sweet corn = 2-3 years

tomatoes = 5-10 years