One of our customers, Walt, shared his experience with sprouting 10 year old
sprouting seeds. We thought you might be interested to hear how it went.
“(I) purchased (sprouting seeds) in 1999 just in case Y2K took a dive. I opened the alfalfa seeds to see if they were still good after ten years and had more sprouts then I needed. To sprout the seeds I soaked them for 8 hours - then used the kitchen sprouter (3/4 of a pound of seeds) in two trays on the counter top. I found out when they sprouted it was too much - had more then I could handle, the rest went into a friends garden and they sprouted. I would say about 90% to 95% of the seeds sprouted. As far as storage, that varied over the ten years; put in a box marked food storage with the temperature from 40 degrees to 90 degrees.”
Remember to store seeds in as cool a location as possible (even the refrigerator or freezer if possible). This can greatly increase the shelf life. We love to hear success stories like this one! Send your experience to
[email protected] , so we can share it with everyone else (don’t forget photos if you have any).
2 comments
Shannon
WOW! This article was very interesting! It is good to know that seed saving is so viable. I plan to saves seeds from our favorite garden items this year. I also want to be able to save some of the heirloom tomato seeds for the future! :)
lee
That is a fantastic bit of knowledge. I just received a #10 can of seeds in the mail this week from EE and was wondering just how long the seeds might really last.
Thanks for sharing.
Lee