Seeds that never go out of date

You can rely on sunflowers to cheer up the allotment at this time of year. This one, the aptly named Giant Single sunflower, was grown from some very out-of-date seed which I sowed back in April on the basis that I might as well use them up as buy fresh. I think the packet recommended sowing by end 2009.

Expiry dates on seed packets can often be used as guidelines rather than hard and fast rules. I have successfully germinated out-of-date lettuce, tomato, chilli, and beetroot seeds. Anything from the season after the expiry date, to several years in the case of lettuce in particular.

Of course germination rates are nearly always better with fresh seed and a lot depends on who the seed has been stored in the meantime. If seeds are kept cool, even cold, in the dark and, most importantly, dry, they can stay viable for years.

I've always been told that parsnips and carrots should be sowed when very fresh and always buy these new each year. Parsley, another member of the umbellifer family, doesn't germinate well if not sown within a year, but with most other veg, it can't hurt to sow any leftover seeds in modules or the open ground and see what comes up. In the case of these best-by-2009 sunflowers, around 50% germinated and there are another two Italian White sunflower plants about to burst into flower as well.

Beanz meanz trouble

I’ve heard a mass of anecdotal evidence that this year was particularly bad for germinating French and runner beans. Even taking into account my usual method of getting enough seedlings for a crop, it was a struggle. My tried and tested procedure goes like this:

1. Sow beans in pots

2. A fortnight later, when they haven’t germinated and I am conscious that time is getting on, buy plants from local garden centre and plant out at allotment.

3. Check pots the next day to find seedlings have now germinated.

This 3-step process also works if you sow direct into the ground to start with. These beans will not germinate until you have either sown some more in pots or bought some plants from the Garden Centre. Then they will sprout.

Beetroot in the gutter

For the last couple of years, I’ve sown my mange tout and sugar snap peas in lengths of half-guttering. It seems to ensure near 100% germination – especially in the sugar snaps, which I’ve had very variable results with when sown direct. We also get a lot of pea weevil damage at the allotment – those distinct U-shaped bites which make the seedling leaves look very crenellated – and the plants withstand that better if they are bigger when transplanted into pea weevil territory.

(I transplant the pea seedlings when they are about 3 inches tall. I water the plants in the guttering until they are soaking wet, then slide them out of the gutter into a shallow pre-dug. So long as the soil is uniformly very wet the plants slide out with little or no root disturbance.)

I hadn’t thought of starting any other crops off in half-guttering until I was wondering aloud to my plot neighbour why his beetroot were regularly the size of grapefruit while those of mine which germinated were mostly the size of ping pong balls. He suggested sowing the beetroot in half-guttering the same way as with the peas.

In the end I sowed four 1m lengths more or less successionally and while it’s obviously more labour intensive than direct sowing, I got pretty much 100% germination – even from the Burpees Golden variety which are notoriously poor germinators – and a crop which looks as though it’s going to be very uniform in size. I have moved up from ping pong balls to tennis ball sized roots which is also pleasing and will definitely be sowing in guttering again next year.