Welcome to Day 20 of the 30 Day Challenge: How to Start a Vegetable Garden. If you missed Day 19, you can find it on my blog - a link is located in my Street Articles profile.

Seed Preservation

After planting my second round of seed this week (which was Day 19's topic), I began to realize that I had quite a few unopened packets of seeds as well as some packets that were only half used.

Not wanting to waste these precious resources, I took to the internet to find out the best way to preserve these seeds for future gardens.

Some websites suggested to double bag your seeds and store them in the darkest, coldest part of your freezer. They stated the seeds would have a 10 year shelf life there. This might be sound advice, but it gave me cause for concern - I was already having 50% germination in most of my seeds, freezing them would make me worry for even lower germination rates.

Other websites emphasized how cool and dry the seeds must remain, but suggested keeping them in ziploc bags in a cool dark place was sufficient for 1 year preservation. Again, this may work, but didn't give me much confidence.

My Seed Preservation Idea

I then stumbled upon an article from Martha Stewart about reusing a commercial glass jar to hold left over seeds and storing them in a shed where it would be cooler and dark. This was the first idea that I thought would work as the jar would minimize the amount of air the seeds were exposed to as well as minimize concerns over moisture.

While researching how to store my huge bag of sugar I purchased recently in preparation for canning season, I found one more tidbit of information that gave me the idea for my seed preservation plan.

This last piece of information had to do with oxygen absorbers being used to preserve dry goods for extended periods of time. I learned that if you place an oxygen absorber in a glass canning jar with a dry good and place a hot fresh lid and screw band on it, it will remove all oxygen from the container and create it's own vacuum seal!

I thought, this is perfect! I will place my seeds in a glass canning jar, add an oxygen absorber, place a hot lid and band on the jar and know that my seeds will remain fresh!

I looked around for a little more information on this and found (to my disappointment) someone else also had this brilliant idea. They were able to confirm that the seeds stay fresh for up to 3 years using this method.

I haven't tried this yet, but I will be as soon as I my purchase of oxygen absorbers comes in the mail. If any of you have ever tried this, or something similar with canning jars and oxygen absorbers, please let me know as I'd love to hear your stories and advice!

30 Day Challenge

Are you enjoying my 30 Day Challenge? Have I achieved my goal of inspiring people from all around the world to grow a garden? I hope I have. As so many of the expert gardeners have commented on my previous articles, gardening is easy if you dedicate some time to it each day.

I hope you will continue to learn and grow with me. And for those of you who have asked, I have posted a few pictures of my garden on my website - Day 19. More to come as the garden grows.