Non-GMO Seeds Purchase, Long Term Seed Storage

With most of my post and projects, I want understand and learn. I don't mind failing, I like to learn from my mistakes. I don't mean that I want to fail, but when I do I want to try to understand where it all went south, and learn for the future. However I wouldn't trust my seeds in a freezer for 25 years no matter what others tell me.

So I went ahead and purchased those 34,500 seeds I wrote about last month. I want to investigate the packaging method, the seed quality as well as germination rates. I was so suprised to find corn as a Non-GMO seed in this package. I thought the last corn that was not GM was lost in the fifties, but there it is.

The silver envelope (Mylar) arrived well packaged, semi air tight, filled with seeds. I took it upon myself to open it gently and to my surprise were some little baggies, hand labeled, filled with seeds. These bags are the size of bags I would purchase MJ in back in my high school days.

As an emergency stash of seeds, safety saved for future use, was this purchase worth it? I weighted the seeds, and headed to the box store with a pen in hand. I would say for the quality, method, and shear variety, it was a good purchase to be able to put the seeds away for future use. I have removed 50% of the seeds, resealed the original bag, placed it in my root cellar.

With the seeds I kept out, I will sow half those this year, and I have resealed a smaller bag of the rest to sow in five years. I am doing this to double check the storage approach to long term seed keeping. I want to know for myself if this approach is correct. I have often read of yearly seed rotation done by the governments of the world as well as other self sufficient farmers.

It is a great idea to rotate your seeds year to year, but it is ok to also store seeds for long term for future use. Saving your seeds year to year, and rotating them ensures that the new seeds you have do have the energy to grow.

Purchasing a seed vault/packet if you live in the city is also a great idea because in a time of food crisis it becomes a tool that can help keep you alive. You can't just put seeds into the ground and hope they grow, you have to understand the plants needs such as ph of soil, light and what conditions to grow them under and how long will it take to grow them. Armed with a simple seed sprouting chart and a good guide like.
This will teach you how to not only grow plants but also companion planting, grow two different plants together to benefit each other and protect your food from animals in some cases.