Testing Old Seed Viability
Back at the end of March I won seeds in an Instagram contest. I never received them, wondered briefly if they were lost in the mail, or the sender forgot to mail them, then didn't think of them again. Until yesterday, when they came in the mail!
Packets of seeds and saved seeds from the Instagramer's own plants.
The Ferry-Morse are "sell by 12/2015," but that may not matter, as seeds are viable for years. How many years depends on what kind they are and how they've been stored. I'm testing them on top of the refrigerator. That's where it's warm enough for them to germinate, if they're going to, in damp paper towels inside zipper plastic bags.
I'll let you know what happens. It might be a few days or a few weeks.
The Instagram I used then is no longer around. I loved it, but it was consuming my time!
It'll be an interesting experiment.
ReplyDeleteI am eager to see some results. I had old peas sprout in two days once.
DeleteI hope the seeds are viable. Unrelated, but I wonder if seeds will be in short supply for the 2021 season - if the pandemic will cause another run like it did in 2020.
ReplyDeleteThat was interesting. I don't think some new gardeners realized you have to plant earlier in the season to get a harvest. One problem earlier this year was some seed sources closed shop for a while. Seed prices from my usual eBay sellers cost more this year.
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