Many gardeners and vegetable gardeners prepare planting material at home. Using your own collected and carefully dried seeds is not only a way to save money on their purchase, but also a guarantee against mis-grading, defective grains, and non-marketable grains. After all, stories about how a whole bag of marigold or cucumber seeds yielded two weak seedlings are no longer uncommon.
And in order for the seed fund to delight with the arrival of spring with massive shoots, it must be properly collected and stored. It is much easier to preserve the germination of all seeds until spring if you follow the advice from experienced summer residents that we have selected in this article.
Rules and recommendations for storing vegetable and flower seeds
Let's start with preparing the grains. Seeds for future sowings are selected exclusively from fully ripened, and sometimes overripe, fruits in the garden, preferably large and having all varietal characteristics.Seeds extracted from tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini, and squash are first washed under cold water and then laid out to dry on plates or sheets of white paper.
Seed drying is carried out in a shaded, warm place with good air circulation, for example, in a kitchen, loggia or attic. For convenience, bowls of grains can be stored in a kitchen cabinet or shelving unit. After drying for a week, the grains are carefully separated from the surface of the glass or paper and placed in paper bags or envelopes, not forgetting to write the inscription (type of plant, variety, year of collection). According to reviews from experienced plant growers, the lack of labeling almost always leads to confusion and mis-grading.
When putting flower seeds in bags, you can use dried leaves, petals or inflorescences, which eloquently testify to the type of crop better than any notes. Small seeds can also be stored in matchboxes. But it is advisable to keep large grains, for example, peas, beans or lentils either in linen bags or in small glass jars. To eliminate excess moisture, bags of silica gel taken from a box with a new pair of shoes are placed in such jars.
To ensure that the seeds of annual flowers do not lose their viability, experienced gardeners keep them in a cool place at a temperature of +6 to +8°C, for example, on the door or bottom shelf of the refrigerator.
Seeds of leaf and head lettuce, as well as arugula and radishes, on the contrary, at low temperatures deteriorate their properties and often go to waste. Therefore, they must be stored warm, at a temperature of +22 to +24°C.
Typically, vegetable seed material is stored indoors at a temperature of +18 to +22°C.Packages with grains of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and leafy greens are kept in special boxes or boxes so that they do not get lost, and it is convenient to look for them when the time comes for planting seedlings or in open ground. At the same time, in the place where the seed fund is located, there must be good ventilation and normal air humidity (75-85%).
Shelf life of seeds of various vegetables and flowers
Many seeds lose their viability after a certain time, even if all storage conditions are met. As practice shows, asters sprout well only in the first year, and already in the second season their sprouts become much less common.
Onion sets and single cloves of garlic, which have the ability to quickly lose moisture and nutrients, that is, dry out, also cannot be stored for more than one year.
You should not store seeds of marigolds, marigolds, annual phlox, carrots, parsley, as well as aerial bulbs of garlic, nigella and onion for more than two seasons.
Lawn grass seeds, unlike other planting material, can be safely stored in plastic bags, in which manufacturers usually package them.
But planting material collected from all types of cabbage, lettuce, radishes, turnips, radishes, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, vegetable peppers, coriander, petunia, mallow and lavatera do not lose their germination even after 3-4 years.
Up to 5 years, vitality is inherent in the seeds of beets, nasturtiums, sweet peas, balsam, gillyflowers, and cornflowers. Large seeds are considered the most viable (up to 7 years): legumes (beans, beans, peas, lentils), pumpkin, zucchini.
Experts do not advise sowing expired seeds, hoping for the traditional “maybe”, otherwise you risk delaying the beginning of flowering of plants and the ripening period of fruits for several days or even weeks.
We wish you easy work at your summer cottage!
