Pushing the Limit

We plant heirloom (non-hybrid) seeds, so we try to save seeds from year to year.  It saves money, for sure.  Most years I also purchase seeds just as "insurance."  To save seed, you must research as saving bean or pea seeds differ from saving tomato, squash, and cucumber.  The hardest thing, however, about saving seed, is you want to save seed from your prettiest, biggest, most healthy harvest instead of eating it.

I have several drawers full of old medicine bottles and supplement cannisters that are labeled and stashed away.  Most years I'll plant a row of purchased seed and also a row of saved seed.  I want to rotate them using the first in - first out method.  What we've found is that as time marches on, the vigor and germination rate falls off.  To compensate, if my seed is really old, instead of planting a seed every four inches as some calls for, I'll plant a seed every inch.  

I have a whole bunch of Boston Pickling Cucumber seeds saved.  That is my favorite variety, although I grow 3 other varieties.  Boston Pickling are smaller, crisp, and have small seeds.  They snap and crunch when you bite into them and as the name suggests, they are perfect for pickling.  I pulled these saved seeds out of the drawer.  I saved them back in the spring of 2015.  They're almost 10 years old, but they've been kept dry and out of sunlight.  Let's plant them and see what they do.

I poured a bunch of seeds in my hand.  They look fine, but you can't judge a book by its cover.

I planted two seeds per seed pot, watered them and set aside.  In just a little bit, we had some growth.  We also had some with no growth.  Out of 12 seeds planted, four of them came up, giving us a 33% germination.  Not too good.  I'll remember to plant the rest of these next spring and I'll plant them very very close to make up for the low germination.

This evening I checked on them and they have their first true leaves on them and they look healthy.  I'll get these transplanted in the garden beneath the trellis tomorrow morning.

We had a spectacular crop of cucumbers this spring and enjoyed cucumber salads daily with fresh dill and blueberries.  Hopefully, we'll have a nice fall crop of Boston Pickling Cucumbers from seeds that are almost a decade old.