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shopping Did I buy seeds too early?

OhioGrown

OhioGrown

so i got on pepperlover.com and picked up some seeds with the intention of growing them next year. i was going to start them in March indoors, and get them a head start on next years growing season. should i have waited until next year to get them, or does is matter? i bought Giant Jalapeno, Chocolate Habs, and Trinidad Scorpion Moruga, I also have 4 Ghost Pepper plants i dug out of the garden. they are overwintering in my dining room, getting decent sun, and doing pretty well so far.

ps. pepperlover sent me a free small sample of Trinidad Scorpion powder, and holy shit is it hot!
 
Keep them in a cool dry place ( but not the freezer) out of light and theoretically you can store seeds for many years. Your germination rates will drop as time progresses however.
Fresh is best and after that anything that is less then 1-2 years old is great.

(As long as its been treated right). The worst thing for stored seed is heat, light and moisture (and temperature fluctuations aren't great either)
 
I'm in OH, too, and many of us this far north or more start seeds in the December/January timeframe. Feb/Mar is still good, but IMO Dec/Jan is better, or at least the plants will be larger come springtime. And agree, your seeds should be fine for years. If you're not already aware, you should keep a fan on them once they sprout. This both helps simulate wind to keep the stems strong, and also helps prevent damping off, which is a fungus that can grow at the soil line and kill your plants. Bottom-watering is best so you avoid getting the soil surface wet.

Contrary to popular belief, you can put seeds in the freezer, though I don't know what the maximum time is. I have put whole pods in the freezer for a few months, then germinated the seeds from them. In fact, I only germinated the seeds from them because someone was insisting it couldn't be done. Yeah.... 100% germination. Fact is that seeds freeze in nature, yet we still have all kinds of wild plants out there. People told me the seed embryo would effectively burst inside the seed casing if they froze, that the ground doesn't actually freeze in winter, seeds somehow bury themselves too deeply in the ground to freeze in the winter, and all sorts of other stories. Yeah, right. Since you only have seeds, you have no need to freeze them (my focus was on freezing the pods; at the time I froze them I didn't care about the seeds), but just be aware in the event you do end up freezing seeds at some point.
 
Ya you will be fine. I am going to try to replenish my seed stock every 3-5 years tops but they can ast that long easily if you keep them cool and dry and dark. I am planning on rotating most of my "crop" lol (i grow several plants in pots) and making bonsais out of them until i have one of each of my varieites as a bonsai for seed production only.
 
+1 on trippas comment. Save every seed youve got, and use the oldest ones first... if you have seeds that havent been used within a few years, you'll see the germinations rates decrease. So a five year old package of seeds may only sprout 50% if stored correct. I have some rare squash seeds that are now 5 yrs old and half of the ones planted last season germinated
 
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