Garden And Gossip Forums

What do you do with old seeds? OK, you may do a bit of viability testing but seriously, you're never going to sow 1000 lettuces - why do they put so many in a packet?
I'll tell you what I do - not that you'll be surprised.
I empty the old seeds into a jar/pot and give them a stir. One pot for seeds of edible plants, the other for flowers. Then, I find a bare patch of soil and scatter it with seeds, sit back and wait to see whether any germinate.
Since all the edible seeds will be together, I know that whatever germinates will be edible - just as all the flower seeds probably are not. 
I've been topping up the Edible seed pot today and it contains:-
Onions and leeks
Carrots
Fennel
Brassicas of all sorts
Radish
Celery
Cress
Coriander
Lettuce
Rocket.

Whatever grows is a bonus. All we are saying, is give seeds a chance. 

Finding a bare patch is the toughie, might have to use a pot

I have followed your lead on this in the past. I’m still reaping the rewards. I’m regularly harvesting radish seed pods from my raspberry bed    . Which is where I scattered the edibles. 
It is getting close to seed juggling season so I might do an old flower seed pot for up at the plot     .

I do much the same but a bit more randomly, and when we had loads of bare ground from the house build I mixed and scattered everywhere. Most disappeared without a trace.

I have better parsnips in my random bed than where I tried to grow them with fresh seed!

I put three rows of seed tape down and got one parsnip, this year. Generally the seed tapes are the most successful for me.

So I see!! Just think how bad it would have been if you'd sown seeds instead of tape.

I think it was the warm weather when I was sowing, I might be wrong but I think they like it a little cooler for germination. I might try staring them in Feb next year.

(10-08-2020, 07:01 PM)Mikey Wrote: [ -> ]I think it was the warm weather when I was sowing, I might be wrong but I think they like it a little cooler for germination. I might try staring them in Feb next year.

Just wondering whether Mikey has been staring at his parsnips yet???

But, I digress, my Pot of Random Seeds has grown bigger over winter, while I've been sorting seeds - it'll soon be time for a grand scattering. I have a few patches in mind, mainly old "paths" that have been swallowed up by adjacent beds.

I use some old packets for microgreens. Same with some veg varieties I've tried but wouldn't grow again