Seed storage

We have had a container (two actually) full of seeds that has been lurking in the back of our fridge for years. This is where we store our seed packets and there must be dozens of them, many dating as far back as 21 years old. In an attempt to try and make room for new seed packets in the already bursting Tupperware container we went through the seeds picking out the more recent seeds, making a pile of the old ones to get rid of. But in the end I could not bear to get rid of any seeds and ended up saving them, forming the second container of seeds. In an attempt to keep the older seeds moving along their way though, I decided to try out an indoors winter garden (I will write more about this soon). As it turns out, not throwing out the seeds was a great move for as I soon found, the seeds were incredibly viable despite their age. I regret that I did not record the amount of seeds that I planted (I plan on doing so in the future through!) but a vast majority of them sprouted without any lack in vigor noticeable to me. Intrigued I looked up the estimated date at which these seeds were supposed to have lost enough of their vigor to be deemed useless and the results were amazing. We had great success with these 21 year old Burpee seeds that according to multiple resources should have expired many years ago. Here is a list of the successful of 21 year old seeds I have tried:

• Basil
• Parsley
• Lavender
• Radish
• Peas
• Swiss chard
  

This says a bunch of things: that by storing your seeds in your fridge will greatly improve their viability, that the estimated dates that mark the limit of the seeds shelf life are under exaggerated and that Burpee sells high quality, long lasting seeds.

Fluorescent Lights

In our basement we have a stand with fluorescent grow lights. They're kept on nearly all year except for a two or so months in the summer and have been fantastic. I use them for just about everything from starting seeds to reviving any unhappy plants elsewhere in the house. Just yesterday we went out to the hardware store to get some new lights for the upper tier of the lighting system which we just opened up the other day after totally running out of room with just the bottom one. The shelf was made so that a second level of grow lights could be installed but we had never needed to use it before. When the upper lights were turned on we noticed the lights were the kind of you would find in an office and were not as suited for plants as the ones made for "plants and Aquariums". Upon doing a little researching I found that the only kinds of light plants really need is blue and red. Blue promotes leaf growth and vegetation while red combined with the blue promotes flowering. The special tube fluorescent lights defiantly have a noticeably redder, warmer and in general much more pleasant hue to them. We got these kind of lights for the bottom level of lights a few months earlier and while I don't have any real evidence that they helped the plants I highly suggest switching to this kind of lights if you haven't already.

Raised Bed

This past summer we did a lot of work in our backyard. We built a patio, constructed a grape arbor, made a composer for vegetable matter and most exciting of all, built a raised bed. It's around 4 feet wide, 8 feet long, 1 foot high and made of large boards of wood. For its dirt we ordered 1 cubic yard of soil and when that was not enough an additional half cubic yard, arriving shortly after ordering it in a truck. Upon inspecting it we found its quality to be a little disappointing. It was heavy, darkly colored and bordering on septic. To improve the soil we spread it out thinly over a tarp to give it a chance to absorb some much needed oxygen and dry it out a little. This helped a bit but as a step to further improve it we mixed in a good amount of dried, milled sphagnum moss. This seemed to improve its overall quality and satisfied we went ahead and put it in the bed. Upon doing so we found that we had a bit extra so we spread the bonus soil over our flower garden. I am unsure of how soil is going to turn out next year, but will be sure update this with the results come spring.

Padio Hybrid

I am new to growing tomatoes as this past season was my first so when I visited our local nursery I was unsure of what to look for. After inspecting various packets of tomato seeds I ended up choosing a Patio hybrid based on the brief paragraph on its back. As it turned out my choice was a great one and while as I mentioned I don't have the experience with tomatoes to compare this hybrid to past ones I can say with some confidence that this is one of the best! Throughout the summer it managed to stayed very compact, never growing more that a foot and a half tall and instead of growing viney and leggy like other tomatoes plants I have seen, it simple grew bushier. Yet dispite of its small size it was surprisingly productive, giving off 14 tomatoes between our two plants and due to its compact nature it didn't need to be staked or caged. Because of this positive experience I this past year with the Padio hybrid I'm definitely going to use it again in this upcoming year's garden. I have collected around 20 seeds from its tomatoes and plan on planting them so that with each passing year the plants become more and more productive. I am unsure if this technique will actually work with tomatoes though and if the seeds I have collected are going to grow true and produce plants like the ones I had last year. If you know anything about this I would love to get some feedback from you to help me answer this question. In any case I'm certainly going to try it out and I'll be sure update this in a few months with the results!

2009 Garden

This past summer we have a particularly successful vegetable garden. The best plants were two "patio" hybrid tomatoes (more about them above) that I had started about 6 weeks prior to outdoor planting. When first brought outside they were put into two separate large terracotta pots that were filled with soil made from composted chicken excrement bought at a local plant nursery. This turned out to be a near disaster as the plants stopped growing an began yellowing and dying off. I strong advise against using any soil of this kind and I never will in the future. I believe it was suffocating the plants roots and although perlight or vermiculite probably could have been added to it to lighten it up, my advise is still to stay clear of the stuff. To replace it we refilled the pots with Miracle Gro soil and it turned out phenomenally. The tomatoes tuned right around and by the end of the growing season had churned out a total 14 large red tomatoes and a good 25 more green ones coming. In two other large terracotta pots were Swiss chard, Kale, Oregano and Collard greens all of which thrived in the new dirt.