Approximately 30 years ago I bought a couple of cans of Survival Seeds from Clyde Robin Seeds (they haven't offered them for years). I just found them in the garage. They are vacuum-packed in a regular can, like a large juice can. Here is a photo, the single one I could find online: Survival Garden


What with the home vacuum-packing available these days, I was just thinking that a good idea might be to collect a variety of vegetable seed packet (ones that you would actually eat) of Open-Pollinated varieties (OP in the seed catalogs), NOT hybrids, put them into heavy-duty plastic and seal them. You could probably just drop them into your freezer and forget them until you need them.

Just remember to get Open-Pollinated varieties. While hybrids are perfectly fine for normal use, if you found yourself in a long-term survival situation, you may want to be able to let some of the plants mature and collect their seeds for replanting next year. You can't do this reliably with hybrids, which tend to revert back, or are simply sterile and won't sprout at all.

Personally, I am doing several of them, with one package of each type -- more if I would be planting them, like carrots -- in each sealed package. This way, I would have backup in case of trouble, but wouldn't have to open a large bundle of them and have no way to reseal them.

Just in case you ever want to try growing potatoes, they're easy, and the Kennebecs are WONDERFUL for taste and storage.

Sue

There's some good information about seed storage here, if you dig around a bit.
http://www.victoryseeds.com/information.html

Uhm, Sue....

Can you edit this, to tighten up that link? It is kinda breaking the portal page.

I guess I need to look into how I should best store them, but I have collected a number of different types of heirloom seeds.

I've looked to try to have enough to grow a garden that will provide a decent amount of food for DW and myself and have some seeds left over. If a crop entirely fails, then I'd have something to try again next year.

I wouldn't expect every crop to fail, in any given year, but if all of the butternut squash or spinach fail in one year, then I can try again next year with those crops. But if everyone did, and I could survive for a year, then I should still have something. I'd probably trade away seeds in the meantime for food, but only if the zombies did not get me.

I'd like to have enough seeds to grow crops for two years for us even with some total failures. It'll be easier to have when we have finished our house, which is still undergoing renovation. Next spring, I should be able to try to grow something.

If I learn to harvest seeds from one years crop to plant the next, well, then I guess I'd have a chance to support us indefinitely, in case of TEOTWAWKI or an attack of zombies.

Ironraven, I'm sorry about that! I didn't even look at it. Sorry.

Sue

Not a problem, I noticed it and it took a few minutes to figure out what was happening.

I have it on good authority (Uncle Elwood's buddy's gardener's housekeeper's cousin) that zombies don't eat vegetables, but they do tromp them down. Fifty thousand volts should take care of that.

Sue

Vegan zombies want graaains.

Applause.

Good one.

I'm not as worried about the vegan zombies as the omnivorous ones.

Would 50,000 volts do it? I remember an old Nightstalker episode, in which the zombie was killed by filling is mouth with salt, sewing it shut, then he was hung in the middle of a circle of white candles. I've always made sure to have a sewing kit, salt and candles in my kits for this very reason.