Hello, dear gardeners, vegetable gardeners and flower growers. Dear friends, we now have a lot of time from all the gardening and garden work, so now at home you can start checking the seeds which you have for a long time lying somewhere in the corners, somewhere under the bed or in the table, and you do not know whether to plant them or not, whether to buy fresh seeds, or do with those that are there. I suggest you to check these seeds for germination. But I will tell such a situation.

For example, I had the seeds lying for 15 years. I wanted very much to check after such Spartan conditions of existence, how they are alive. And this check gave a very good result. Literally in 7 days more than 30% of seeds sprouted, and in 20 days 18 out of 20 seeds sprouted. So we can consider that, of course, the seeds were alive. But unfortunately the germination period was very long. So, dear friends, let's get to the point. I will now tell you what to do with these old seeds.

First, the best way to revive the seeds is to place them in water of thawing snow, or, at most, in rainwater. You take, pour melted snow water into a basin. There's plenty of snow outside. You bring it in, you have it melted in a bowl like this, for example. Here you have the seeds. You have to sign them, of course. Signed, "41." Take an ordinary rag, a small cotton cloth, also immediately signed - "41", so we do not confuse. Seeds can be a lot, so the names should not write on each rag, only under the numbers. Tomatoes - number 15. Let's take a rag and sign number 15, and we will know what we have here.

What can we do? Not pour the seeds immediately into this water, but place them in this rag, and not all the seeds. Clearly a few pieces. To know the germination rate, it is quite enough to take, for example, 5 seeds, and use them to determine the germination rate. Obviously, the more seeds you take, the more accurate the results will be, but we don't have that many seeds. So we will wrap them in such tubes, and place them in this water.

We soaked the cucumbers. Exactly the same way we soak the tomatoes, put them here. They have to soak for about 12 hours. After that, what should we do? You can do that at room temperature. It's even better if it's a little bit higher, like 25 degrees. That's the ideal temperature. Again, ask, "Where do you get one of those?" In the bathroom on a cabinet at the very top under the ceiling. A wonderful temperature for the seeds to quickly soak in moisture.

Then we need to squeeze that water - the seeds are just swollen from the water - and put them in a jar like this (or bigger). Just yesterday I put seeds of other varieties in the jar, but which are also 7-8 years old. And we know that cucumbers can last 6 years well. Tomatoes have a much shorter germination.

There are tomatoes. Perhaps even for a day at 25 degrees on a few pieces already sprouted roots.

And what do we have with the cucumbers? Let's see. The seeds were soaked for literally 24 hours already in warm conditions at 25 degrees. Look, some of the seeds have already sprouted, there were little white beaks. But the thing is that a day to determine - this is not enough. In order to determine whether good germination or not, for cucumbers must pass at least 3-4-5 days, for tomatoes - a little more.

So, we put our seeds in this jar, these seeds returned. Again we put them in a warm place, cover them with a lid. What for? So that these our packages, where the seeds are, don't dry out.

You don't have to look every day, but after about 3 days you look and see what the germination is. If out of 5 seeds you have 4 seeds sprouting, that's awesome germination. If 2 or 3 germinate, then you know that out of 10 seeds prepared for sowing, you will only have half of them germinate. In this way you can already calculate how much seed you may have to buy after you have done this test.

There is, of course, a different germination test period for each type of seed, about a week. Be guided by this time frame. These germinated cucumber seeds are about 8-10 days old.

Let's see what we have next. These are on the same dates. You don't have to get them to that state at all. Sprouted on day 3-4, at most on day 5 - you know the seeds are very, very good.

And here's how hard zucchini sprouted. Same thing, it's literally been a week. The germination is gorgeous. You can see how many seeds you soaked, how many sprouted, and understand the percentage of germination of your seeds.

So, my dears, let me show you how they germinate. It's literally a week in these warm conditions. Look at the peas. All sprouted to one pea.

Let's see what we have next. Here we have carrots. Same thing, literally 10 days, and here we have such wonderful germination. And we are confident with you that even though our seeds were laid, maybe even 5-7-8 years, will germinate and give us a crop next year.

So, my dear, be sure to check the seeds for germination, to be sure whether to buy new seeds and spend money or can do with old seeds. I wish you success and all the best.