Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Have you ever hauled your gardening things out from the previous summer only to happen upon some unopened seed packets in the mix? I did, about three weeks ago. I found watermelon and beets packed for the 2008 growing season and considered tossing them out into the wild portion of my lawn to take as they would or be eaten one of the many birds who frequent my yard.

But the urge to experiment got the upper hand. I thought to myself, wonder if there’s any fertility left in these seeds. So in my watermelon patch, I planted seeds densely in a row, thinking I’d be lucky if one or two took. Same with the beets, I staked out two spots for yesteryear’s beets — the last row in my vegetable garden and another row along the fence.

Well, lo and behold. The watermelons popped up in greater abundance than my yield from this year’s package. They came up so densely that I’ve had to move some to different portions of the patch. I even moved a few into the aforementioned wildflower garden. And I’ve let my neighbor Joe Lamp’l know he can come by and get a few for his garden.

The ’08 beets have also sprung up with surprising vigor. So the takeaway here, is don’t throw away last year’s seed packets. Give them a shot at life. Who knows, next year I may push the envelop and try two-year-old packets, if I find any sitting around.