Re: gazing balls

The seeds in bird feed generally sprout, and are edible. (Not real palatable.) Not any good for bread unless you add the right grains, but they'll do for supplying calories and baiting in quail and dove.

Reply to
Offbreed
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I don't know where the original poster is located, but this sure hasn't been true in my experience in several states in the northeastern USA. Local garden centers have a very, very poor selection of seeds and not particularly suited to the area either.

To the O.P.: since you have (or someone else has, maybe) included 'misc.survivalism', I will assume you want to keep these seeds a long time for some survivalist purpose or other.

If I wanted to do this, I'd buy non-hybrid garden seeds dry-packed in cans for very long storage. For the grains, you can just buy grains that are sold for people to eat: also in cans or 5-gallon buckets, and nitrogen-packed, suitable for long storage.

One place that carries such seeds and grains, packed in cans is:

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would be a good place for your initial purchase.

Right. This is absolutely correct.

Pat

Reply to
pat

There is a very good book about grains. 'Small Scale Grain Raising' by Gene Logsdon that could give you a good insight into grain crops. And your Agricultural Extension office as well. Almost all of their literature is free. And their advice as well.

JonquilJan

Learn something new every day As long as you are learning, you are living When you stop learning, you start dying

Reply to
JonquilJan

Humm I didn't see the various News group names until I agreed to allow posting to all of them, which I don't usually do.

misc.survivalism,rec.gardens,rec.food.preserving,rec.gardens.edible

Janice

Reply to
Janice

yup.... 'cept lettuce, parsnips, think orach seed doesn't keep either. Usually they only last the season they're purchased for, no longer. Maybe if there are way better storage facilities than most households, you might get another year out of them, so you'd have to grow them out each year and save new seed.

Janice

Reply to
Janice

This was originally posted to misc.survivalism. I added the other groups, The first time I tried to crosspost, the darn computer farted before I was finished.

n.

Reply to
North

We buy lettuce seed for less than a dime a package, leaf type, and I have some that are two years old in the box. Planted some for spring and got about 80% germination, which with lettuce seed is more than adequate.

George

Reply to
George Shirley

Kewl, where do you get it so cheap?

I planted some I got from last year, won't grow. Never has grown for me over a year old. No matter how I have stored 'em. *sigh*

Janice

Reply to
Janice

I save my own dill seeds and have successfully got them to germinate with 3yr. old seeds Sue in Mi. (zone 5) Will Spring ever get here??????

Reply to
SAS567

To save seeds over time, in the end you have to plant them and collect the next seasons seeds. It's the only way with seeds that aren't viable for long. I do a search on 'seedsavers' 'seed banks' and see what comes up. There are groups around the world who do just that to keep species alive. And lo and behold, a nice .edu site :-)

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Reply to
Loki

I don't know about parsnip and orach seeds' longevity, but I routinely use lettuce seed that is several years old - it has very good germination.

Pat

Reply to
pat

Old_codger, Our input would be if you are looking to start saving/storing seed for fear of a time when seed stock for growing is no longer available we would suggest a multi faceted approach of the other replies. Buying off the shelf packets of seed at the end of the year for cheap cheap is a great option for low cost however as has been somewhat stated it can be a crap shoot. Some will save and some will not but in a survival situation you arent going to be throwing a tantrum if your leeks dont sprout. You will eat whatever comes up. So we would say go ahead and build a library of seeds from the garden center and try to rotate out all of the oldest every couple years with new. This way you will always have, at the least, 2 years garden in your library. The plants you grow from these packets may or may not be viable for saving seed but they will at the least provide you with food to eat and preserve. In our experience when we purchase lots of cheap packets at the end of a season, each year that passes germination is reduced by 50 percent though there are exceptions in both directions. I wouldnt want to even remotely rely on packets saved for several years for my food supply though they are a great adjunct. To start saving your own seed and building a never ending self generated supply of seed you will want to start growing "open pollinated" or "heirloom" plants in your garden. They are the same with the only difference being that heirlooms are varieties which are at least 50 years old. As was stated, many of the garden center varieties you buy can be hybrids which means any one of a number of things can happen when you save the seed from these plants. They may be sterile and not germinate at all, you may get only one strain of the cross, they may not produce fruit, or they may grow fine for a couple years and then fizzle. Hence crapshoot. Be forewarned however that certain seed can be pretty tough to save and additionally some vegetables are biennials which makes saving seed difficult in some climates. That said, if you really want to insure that you will have viable seed for growing it would be best to grow a season or two's worth of seed every year. This way you have fresh seed for the next two years and should be safe. Simple crops like tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cukes, melons, many peppers, sunflowers, beets, are easy to save seed from with the right procedure and a few fruit will provide you with LOTS of seed. Lettuce and spinach are simple to save seed from as well. Other than new varieties we grow our own lettuce, spinach, from saved seed every year. All of the seed catalogs offer many open pollinated and heirloom varieties additionally a google on "heirloom seeds" will find you many suppliers of strictly heirloom seed.

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is a good resource as well as books like The New Seed Starters Handbook by Nancy Bubel are good.

Good luck, Mark

old_codger wrote:

Reply to
Mark & Shauna

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, snipped-for-privacy@meadows.pair.com at snipped-for-privacy@meadows.pair.com wrote on 13/4/04 6:02 am:

So what is orach? My ignorance always amazes me. Ellen

Reply to
Ellen Wickberg

weird, never have any germinate from a previous season's seed .. must just hate me. What kind of lettuce you use?

Janice

Reply to
Janice

It's a hot weather spinach substitute, comes in green and red. Another hot weather spinach substitute.. malabar spinach .. dunno what the longevity of that seed is ;-) links below. Janice

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Reply to
Janice

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Janice at snipped-for-privacy@removethstoreply.yahoo.com wrote on 13/4/04 6:52 pm:

Reply to
Ellen Wickberg

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