fresh seeds

after weeding the garden, I was reminded how important it is to use fresh seed for planting. Most seeds loose their germination ability after one or two years. Of course there are some varieties that can last longer, but depending on if you have room to chance that only 50% or less will actually make a plant, it can really effect your projected yield. My garden is on the larger side, so I figured I would give some older seeds a chance. My 2 year old seeds did very well, I would guess about 80% of them germinated into a plant. I also had some seeds of unknown age that were given to me by a friend. Sadly not 1 plant came up from that batch. So it's looking like our family will have no fresh broccoli this time around. Which in hindsight, I should have planted some fresher seeds along with the older ones. The freshest seeds I planted are seriously crowded, I would bet that they all came up!! So if you are really counting on your garden to feed your family, I would be sure to plant only the freshest seed, and just compost the old stuff!!