Last Halloween, or more precisely the day after Halloween, we went to Walmart and I let the kids choose a few of the cool pumpkins and squash that had  been marked down after the holiday. We went with the idea to get “cool” looking ones but with some gentle nudging from Momma the choices were both cool and long storage. Over the years I have read many articles, garden books and catalogs proclaiming how long lasting this squash was or how easy to store that squash was and I wondered how much was true and how much was hype. What’s easy to store in the frozen north is another story in the mostly warmer south.

“Keeps easily in the kitchen” – is that a centrally heated kitchen kept at a balmy 78F? Perhaps a wood stove heated “open the door before we have a heat-stroke” warm? Or a simple “put some more clothes on 65F is not cold!” These are the kitchens of a friend’s daughter, another friend, and my home where during the last cold spell we cheered when the inside reached 60F. The “cool bedroom” needs further clarification too. Being a curious person I decided to do my own testing. All squash were kept in the same general area: those in the kitchen were stored in assorted corners with varying degrees of stuff piled in the same corner, some were in the adjacent front room under the fish tank stand with the remaining few (mostly painted pumpkins) in the hallway next to the kitchen. It’s a weird set up. The kitchen and front room have no dividing wall between and might as well be the same room.

We got (I think): long island cheese, maria di chioggia (but not as bumpy as Baker’s Creek) or Burgess buttercup, red kuri or golden hubbard, delicata, butternut, and another one I cannot find a picture of right now.

So far they are held until last week. One small red kuri is beginning to grow mold (but it also was spilled on) and a butternut is feeling soft. The colors are beginning to fade or change but overall they have all been great for storage.

Buttercup squash – the bellybutton looks like our squash

Picture from Rare Seeds

Maria de Chioggia Picture from Voice in the Garden

If you follow the Voice in the Garden link you will see a picture of several winter squash – we purchased all but the warty orange one. They warty ones were all gone when we got to the store the next day.

We baked the Maria di Chioggia. It had an extremely hard shell so I cut it into four pieces and baked it in the oven with some water until soft. The cooked squash was left to cool & then I scooped out the seeds and turned the pulp into a most excellent pie. Truly it was awesome – no strings anywhere, good firm flesh so no watery while baking, nothing that would make the most finicky eater turn up their noses. My picky guy would have had an entire pie if I would have allowed it. The only bad of it all…I should have saved the seeds that were inside instead of baking them. Maybe they would not have been true but maybe they would have. I also should have identified it before the color started fading, or at the very least, before it was baked. Live and learn I guess.

After looking at lots of Maria de Chioggia and butternut pictures I am 90% positive we did get a Maria squash. There’s a lot of changes in storage and after baking.

In other gardening news: I started seeds today. Why yes it is late for some of them but not if your garden soil contains a high percentage of clay which dries out and warms up very slowly. No use having plants ready to plant in the cold soup of a garden.

Today’s was: onion seeds, some cole crops and a few tomatoes. I had a “squee” moment this past weekend when the brand new never used starting tray from last year turned out to be a tray & warming mat combo. We now have three seed starting mats and could use more. Now that winter proofing items are on clearance I bought some rolls of good clear plastic to re-do the mini greenhouse my sister gave me a few years ago. She didn’t use it much and gave it to me. Between the sun and the wind the plastic fell apart at the end of last years seed starting season. She didn’t use it much because she found a wonderful homemade seed starting set-up. I should have her take a picture because I’d like to own one myself.

That’s about all the news from the garden front. Still no camera cord though the dh assures me it *is* right there on the desk. It will get found…Sooner or Later…

I was digging around the pantry, trying to clear off the garden bench to make room for the whole seed starting business when I came across a box I didn’t recognize. Trying to dig out is also a synonym for “get rid of junk” so I opened the box and discovered a box full of old seeds. Not only were they old seeds but they were seeds I had no memory of putting into that box. From the dates on the various packages those seeds should have been fed to the chickens two years ago during the “great dead seed purge” but instead they hid out in the pantry.

Now a box full of seeds – even a small box full of seeds- is a lot of seeds to just throw away or feed to the chickens. After the last “great seed purge” I learned that many of the seeds I assumed were dead mostly likely were not. That the chickens had quite an expensive snack. (and enjoyed every bit too!) This time I decided to be a *real* gardener and test the old seeds. hurray (insert sarcasm)

I bought some sturdy plastic sandwich bags & some paper towels, plugged in the heat mat and set to work. The seeds I tested ranged in age from 2002 – 2011 and included beans, corn, melons and a couple of odd items. I got the paper towels wet and began counting out seeds. Do you know how that works?…

How to test:

• count out 10 seeds (cause that’s way easier later) or more if you have a lot of seed to spare
• place them neatly on a damp paper towel
• fold the towel over and place it in a sandwich baggie. Leave the baggie open enough to keep from molding but closed enough to keep from drying out.
• Place the baggie containing the damp paper towel wrapped seeds in a warm place – my warm place was a heating mat with folded cloth under the seed tray.
• wait for the average sprouting time for the seed type being tested. In this case the average was 5-7 days and I waited a week. (Seven days for the math impaired.)
• carefully unwrap the paper towels and count how many sprouted. The term for sprouting is germination.
• IF you tested 10 seeds then each seed is 10% so 5 seeds = 50% germination rate.
• If it’s early, early, early throw away the paper towels & sprouts. If it’s not you *could* plant those sprouts but you also just ripped off delicate roots and they might not recover ever. Grow yes, grow their best no. Be brave & throw them on the compost heap.

Now about those rates. There’s a lot of info on the web about what % means what and that is something a gardener has to decide for themselves. For 50% I’d be willing to plant twice as think *if* it was a lot of seed, was expensive or was rare. For <50% it gets harder, kind of, but usually those seeds are fed to the chickens. Unless they are treated with fungicide. For >50% the higher the percent the better chance the seeds have of being kept and planted THIS YEAR. Weak seeds can mean weak plants so it’s really a judgement call based on personal preference.

How did mine go?

Well xtra sweet corn – the little tiny seeds – do not last much past a year in good storage conditions and being left in a box on a shelf in a pantry is about as far away from good storage conditions as you can get. Dark…it was dark so we get good marks for dark but that’s all. ALL the seeds of any xtra sweet corn were dead. However, corn seeds from older style corn were just fine with good to great germination. Golden Bantam was a champ and good seed viability gets added to all it’s other good qualities.

Melons were a mixed lot. Ginger’s Pride – a heritage seed from Baker’s Creek in 2009 and 85% germination rate. One seed was in the middle of growing a root and one seed was maybe, just germinating. Still that’s exceptional! The rest were for all purposes dead with 0-10% germination. Those are will be chicken feed.

Peanuts – dead. Not just dead but dead and gross. A warm, wet, dead peanut five days later is a smelly, slimy mess.

Razorback Southern Pea – well it’s the exception to any rule. The germination was about 10%. There were a couple that looked like they might be germinating but maybe not. However, this seed was developed here in Arkansas by an avid gardener. The seed was offered to Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and they offered it in smaller quantities that sold out early in the season. Two  years ago there was a drought and for spring 2011 the catalog said “coming back next spring”. Last year there was another drought and this year’s catalog did not even list the seed. When I typed in the catalog number the website did show “not available.” So I am going to put two or more seeds is a pot and start them inside. I do not expect very much but any seedlings will be better than none & I will use any that do grow to produce seed to save for next year. It seems a shame to lose a seed that was grown for this area.

Earlier this year I tested some seeds with a slightly different story. Two years ago I planted seeds – moth beans from Bountiful Gardens and then drought came. Now moth beans are small plants and I just assumed they died in the drought. Imagine my surprise when I went out in October and found bean plants with dried bean pods full of seeds. Slender tiny pods but still pods. Either those seeds I planted hung on until fall rains OR they re-seeded themselves. Doesn’t matter cause I collected the pods, put them in a decorative flower pot thingy and promptly mostly forgot about them. Occasionally I’d see and think “I need to do something with those seeds” but the reality is I’d forget again. When I found them this time I did a seed germination without the heating mat. Instead I just plopped the poor things on the water heater because “it’s supposed to be warm” (it isn’t) and when I checked it was almost 100% germination. Yes, after two years of truly cruddy treatment in the garden and in the house they still grew!! So those are getting planted AND I ordered more. Drought & heat resistant – they are from India after all.

There you go – the germination test for this year. I do not test tomato or pepper seeds, old seeds just get planted thicker in the pots & separated if they all grow. I’ve seen what a tomato seed can go through and these seeds have been down right pampered comparably speaking.

Apparently Baker’s Creek isn’t selling Ginger’s Pride this year but I did find a link with a picture. Looks good doesn’t it?

If I find the camera cord I’ll post a picture of my pantry set up there’s quite a lot going on for such a small space. I’m pleased with how it’s doing & just have minor tweaks left to do.