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[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

Thanks James, I'm not accustommed to trying to plan for such things.  I would 
have thought someone growing their own food (like you) would have to buy seed 
by the pound instead of the gram (like I do from gurneys).  I thought I 
remembered big hoppers of seed when I was a kid......bobford 


--- On Sat, 10/25/08, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com> wrote:

> From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] was music, now farming, agricultural, other misc.
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Saturday, October 25, 2008, 7:21 PM
> >  >I was just curious of a person could buy a few lbs
> of each and then store 
> > them.  From what you are saying it wouldn't work ,
> even if you could find 
> > them at a better price, now.
> 
> You in fact cannot do this.  Most gardeners and subsistence
> farmers make the 
> mistake of buying WAY too much seed.
> 
> Some large and very hard coated seeds like wheat and corn
> are viable for 
> decades if not centuries.  Others hardly last until the
> next season like peppers 
> and eggplants.  Everything else is in between.
> 
> Depending on they type of gardening done, low germination
> rates can be 
> disasterous.   I plant a lot of things in seedbeds and
> transplant them so low 
> germination is not so much a problem.  But in plots that
> are direct seeded and 
> especially those that are precision seeded, low germination
> is a killer.
> 
> I do a great deal of seed-saving.  But I don't think
> anyone need seriously 
> fear a general lack of vegetable seeds being for sale. 
> People have been 
> offering vegetable seeds for sale for hundreds of years and
> methinks this is very 
> unlikely to discontinue.
> 
> To grow all the tomatoes, for instance, that a large family
> needs for a year 
> takes fewer seeds than can be pinched between thumb and
> forefinger.  A 
> teaspoon of cabbage seeds will give more than a ton of
> cabbage, more than you could 
> possibly use.  There is no advantage whatever in having a
> quart of either.  
> 
> James
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