May sow all veg seeds direct BUT tomatoes and peppers are best started inside & then set out after danger of frost. For these 2 plants then you will have a longer fruiting time before the first frost. Seed longivity depends on the species so no general rule exists.... Parsnip seed is good for only 9 months & I have germinated some seeds that were over 3400 years old. There is a seed saving forum & a national orginazation (seed savers exchange) they will be able to provide the other answers. Will also wish to check out the forum on heirloom vegies & Historic gardens.

Hello Chris,
"I dont have much room indoors"
Maybe you'll be interested in sowing seeds this winter and leave them outdoors?? People at the Winter Sowing Forum have been doing that with great success. They sow seeds in recycled containers then leave them outdoors in the cold. The seeds will germinate when the time is right. The seedlings are very hardy and grow fast in the season. You won't have to worry about hardening off, damping off or spindly seedlings. You can sow many different seeds. -even tomatoes ,herbs, and other vegetables. Winter Sowers will try anything just to see whether the seeds will germinate.

Please check it out. It's the cheapest & easiest way to grow from seeds.
Best of all, it's a lot of fun. Beats the winter doldrum. :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: wintersown.org

Wow, Pitam, What a great post! Lots of information in there!

Chris, We like to buy from lots of different sources because we like seeds and growing from seed and trying new things. That's why you see so many choices. Place One might have THE BEST carrots (or whatever) and Place Two might have THE BEST long beans, but then another catalog comes out with albino beets, and hey! ya gotta try some novelties, too! :)

I am a flower grower and just put in veggies for the caterpillars to eat, so am no help there. LOL!

Lime

Chris,

I don't know a thing about growing veggies, but I've grow flowers seeds on windowsills and underlights for years until last year when I discovered winter sowing. I did about 80% of my seed starting this way and it is so easy, so much fun and there's a great community on gardenweb to boot! They answer all your questions very patiently!

As for seed saving, I'd always done a litte bit, but with WSing I had just tons of plants to gather seeds from at the end of the season. I was then able to participate in some of those round robin large swaps. I actually received one yesterday and it's an amazing feeling staring down into an envelope chock FULL of seeds - all for free! To get you started you can get a variety of seeds in a newbie packet from Bakemom over on the WS forum and from wintersown.org. Plant those this year and you'll have plenty of seeds to share/ swaps next year.

Best of luck to you!
Nancy

Chris, I was a newbie last year, and also had lots of questions, so don't feel bad about asking anything. I found wintersowing works so well that I am not even going to set up my shelves & lights inside this year. Wintersowing is like having a greenhouse to start seeds in. It protects them from the elements, and puts them in an environment that is perfect for germination.
Wow George, 3400 year old seeds! That is cool!
The round robins accept collected, commercial & seeds that you may have received in another trade & either don't need or have a lot to share. That is the key word! Everyone here loves to share advice & seeds!
Have fun!
Maggie

Chris,

Like you, I don't have much room to start plants inside. I stumbled across gardenweb and the idea of winter sowing a few years ago. I had never had much luck direct sowing seeds (seeds washed away, birds ate them etc.). Even though I wasn't really sure that it would work I decided to try winter sowing. I was amazed at how many sprouts I had and what a beautiful flower bed I had that summer.
I didn't have any seeds to start with, so I answered posts offering seeds for sasbe. Now getting ready to start my 4th year winter sowing I have too many seeds. I don't have veggie seeds, but if you are interested in some flower seeds send me an email.

Ginger

Thanks for all of the advise and help!! I have much reading to do....

WIntersowing sounds like great fun....I thinkI am going ot give it a shot....got to get my seeds....

THanks!!
Chris

Hi Chris, here are my thoughts on these questions.

Direct Sowing & Veggies: You can direct sow anything, save for tomatoes and pepers as stated above. Other things that are best/more easily started earlier -- squashes, cukes, herbs. I used to direct sow everything save for these. The ones that really should be direct sown are any and all root crops (carrots, beets, etc) as they tend to deform if transplanted. I also direct sow all legumes.

All this said, I do less veggie gardening now, but I would now WinterSow lots of non-root crop/beans/lettuce (though I would WS some of the lettuces too, but it's just too easy to direct sprinkle - they don't earn more than one container from me). I can't stand the room indoor starting takes up. Wintersow or Dirct sow for me now.

When veggie planting, I always plant in "blocks" not rows. More food per square foot (there is a Square Foot gardening forum, but I use a different method) -- lettuces in, say, a 2ft x 3ft solid block area; Tomatoes planted closer together than recommended so they form a hedge, or farther apart but with the 3ft x 3ft of spinach beneath them; solid 3ft x 3 ft of bush beans, etc. Less area for weeds, more conservation of water, shading/cooling of the spring greens. (This large squarefootage is why I wouldn't WS alllll of it.)

Wintersowing - Veggies & Flowers: Oh, the joy. Instead of having to bustle around 8 weeks before the last frost, like a chicken with my head cut off....I get to pace it out all through the winter and garden when I couldn't garden before. The seeds do the rest, they know when to sprout, etc. As said above, no damping off problems, no having to harden things off before planting out. (I've got 130 seed types sows outside in jugs already this season.)

Multi-Vendor purchasing: Agreed, it's nice to get the specal things you want from others. by looking at vendors listings, you can decide which is your best bet as your Primary vendor (depending on what your priorities are -- varieties you want, seed counts, price, shipping, etc).

Saving Seeds: Rule of thumb -- hybrids may not grow true from seed, but they may grow something interesting anyway. I haven't done much veggie seed saving, but tomatoes and cukes need to be fermented (rotted) or the seeds won't grow. OP seeds (open polinated) may crossbreed, I think this is a problem particularly in all squashes/cukes, tomatoes, peppers maybe. Look into this more with forum searches.

For flowers, I save anything really. If the same flowers of different varieties are growing in the same area, some crossing is possible. See the FAQs in the Seed Saving Forum. Finding the seed for each kind of flower is a learning process, just poke around - usually in the middle "somewhere"!** Everyone has different preferences for how they dry them -- I pile the torn up flower heads/seed pods into coffee filters and dry for a week or two. Then they go into lg ziplock bags and seeds get seperated from the chaff. Seeds get parcelled into little 2"x3" ziplocs for trading (some use paper evelopes). There are entire threads devoted to Storage Systems for seed stashes. Generally includes some kind of filing idea, grouping by seed types, and envelopes or baggies.

Storage / Viability: Most seeds I'll sow until I'm out. With certain things I get less germination as the years progress, so I sow heavier with those. I always indicate the year collected on each stored seed (see my trade list), so that traders know what they're getting and can decide for themselves. Generally I don't ever keep anything past 5 years, but this is not by some rule, they're just used up by then.

Keep the seeds in a reasonably cool and dry place. I don't use the fridge, some do. Just don't sick them on top of the fridge (warmer), right in front of a sunny window, or on the dash of your car. :)

Group Swaps / Round Robins: fine to trade gathered or commercial seeds, sometimes even seed you traded for as well (again, see my trade list structure; traded seed -- these I mark as from Trade, so others know I can't be 100% certain of the proper seed ID). I mark the seeds as G/C/or T for my records, and for other traders' info. The rules for each group swap will usually indicate any parameters for that swap.

Come by the wintersowing forum, I can't believe the hords of benefits to this method.
--Tina

Bookmark these links for both seed IDs (finding what is what in there) and for germination info --

http://www.backyardgardener.com/tm.html

http://www.theseedsite.co.uk/

http://tomclothier.hort.net/

You'll need the latin name for some of these - to find that, do a search on google for the common name.

the best book I have seen is called seed to seed. The book is incredible. each chapter is a type of plant and it will tell you how to polinate, how far away to plant to keep from cross breeding, how to save the seed ect..... hince the name "seed to seed"