Preppers: Having a Well-Rounded Seed Stockpile
Kevin Felts 10.17.17
While doing a video for the Seed Stockpile Genetic Diversity article, I decided to take my entire seed inventory and lay it out on a table. The seeds were organized by type, such as beans, peas, corn, okra, melons, winter crops.
I quickly realized there are more pea and snap bean seeds than anything else. Next was greens, such as turnip and mustard greens. Then came corn, squash, and other types of summer crops. By laying out my seed stockpile and organizing each group, I was able to see the gaps.
It became evident certain seed types were missing, such as peppers and spices. There were some cilantro, onion, and bell pepper seeds, but stuff like Jalapeno peppers were lacking. Besides being a source of nutrients such as vitamin C, peppers help spice things up.
When stockpiling seeds, it is easy to keep everything in a box, take the box out a few times a year, look through it, pull out what you want, then put the box back in the freezer. However, until all the seed bags are laid out and counted, do you really know what you have?
Let’s take cucumbers for example. They are nutrient-poor and many people remove the skin before eating, and the skin contains its few nutrients. Why waste time, water, fertilizer, and compost on growing cucumbers, when those resources would be better-spent on something else, such as onions or leafy greens? So, why stockpile cucumber seeds?
Various stores, such as Dollar Store, mark down their summer products for clearance at the end of summer. The seed packets I bought on October 16, 2017 cost just $0.08 or $0.15 each.
Those seeds packets included:
- Carrot, Danvers half long.
- Cilantro.
- Bean, Kentucky wonder.
- Beets, Detroit dark red.
- Onion, White lisbon bunching.
- Parsley, Plain Italian.
- Pea, Sugar snap.
- Pepper, Habanero.
- Pepper, Sweet banana.
- Pepper (Bell), California wonder.
- Pumpkin, Connecticut field.
- Squash, Table queen acorn.
- Squash, Waltham butternut.
- Sunflower, Lemon queen.
- Tomato, Delicious.
- Tomato, Beefsteak.
- Tomato, Homestead.
In all, I bought 30 packets at one time. Even if all the packets cost $0.15, that was $4.50 invested into my family’s future.
Next thing is to check other local stores, and to check online.
So, how often do you go through your seed stockpile? At the end of the year, do you check local stores for seed packets on sale?
