The strangest posts wind up causing some controversy.
It doesn’t make sense to me.
When I wrote about why having an emergency seed bank is important, I didn’t quite get the reaction that I’d expect.
I received emails, Facebook comments and Tweets saying that I couldn’t be more wrong about storing the seeds and that freezing them was a horrible idea.
I’ll admit that I have never frozen seeds before and then used them. It is a recommendation that I’ve seen countless time before.
So I did a bit of research and here’s some excerpts from sites:
Last year we planted a variety of different seeds that we had put in the freezer over 10 years ago and forgotten about and they came up just fine. They were just in ziplock bags. — via Survivalist Boards
Seeds dried to a low moisture content with silica gel and then stored in a freezer can usually retain viability for many years. — via HowToSaveSeeds.com
Freezing seeds will put the embryo into suspended animation reducing its need to consume the sugars that are encased in the seed. This increases it’s storage life immensely… — via Ready Nutrition
Takeaways for Storing Your Seeds in the Freezer
The main takeaways that I got in my research were the following:
- Make sure the seeds are dry when placed in the freezer. Using a silica gel pack can help with this.
- Put the seeds in an airtight container. This can be a mason jar or even a ziplock bag. Vacuum sealing works well too.
- Allow the seeds to thaw before planting. These are for long-term storage, but good to keep this tip in mind.
How do you store your seeds for the short or long-term?
Get 10% Off an Emergency Seed Bank
Don’t forget that today, Wednesday, January 18, 2012, is the last day to get 10% an All-In-One Emergency Seed Bank from SeedsNow.com.
All you have to do is click here and use the discount code giveme10now to get 10% off.
