Since we’re on the topic of seed viability, let’s talk about those seeds that don’t last very long! There’s several types of seeds that have rather short shelf life and it’s important for the gardener to be aware of them!
Some seeds simply have short lifespans. Fortunately, it’s only a small handful of them, but there’s a few that have to be more frequently replaced than most others.
In the vegetable world, this mostly affects onion, leek, shallot, parsnip and corn seeds. In the herb realm, caraway, chives, cumin, lavender and stevia all have short shelf life. There’s also quite a few flowers who’s seed just won’t last for the long haul.
In general, with these seeds you can expect around one year of viability, sometimes two years if you really push it. Our experiments with pushing these short shelf life seeds indicate viability really starts to fall off a cliff in their third season.
If you’re trying to eek every bit of value out of these seeds, you certainly can sow a second (and even third) season from them. We’d definitely suggest over-sowing these seeds to ensure you get a viable seedling. Remember, seed viability deals with the likelihood of you getting an actual seedling from a given seed.
Some years we simply replace these seeds each season, just to reduce the things we have to think about and generally lighten our workload. But, in some years, cost savings rule and we try to eek a second year out of our seeds. In these seasons, we will often sow 3 to 4 seeds for every final transplant that we want to produce. If we happen to get multiple germinations, we’ll cull the excess so we only raise one actual seedling.
So, if you’re planning some of these this season, be sure to give a look at your seed’s age! They can really bite you with low germination rates, especially in that third season and beyond! And we’ll slap our seed viability charts down in the comments, just in case you want more reference information!
