Seed Life

[Dorothy rouse]

When I was a child, ( yawn..... Sorry) we didn't have a fridge either, milk was delivered daily, and in summer stood in cold water, if it did go off, was used to make scones. I can't remember, what happened about meat, but we did have pantry's that had marble shelves, so maybe it kept ok. Good old days eh!

[veggiechicken]

We didn't have a fridge either so meat was bought on the day you were going to cook it.
Talking to my Mum this week about milk deliveries and she said that when she was a kid a man would come round the street on a Sunday with 2 churns on a handcart. One churn of skimmed milk, one with full cream. Mum and her sister would take a jug out to be filled with skimmed milk for the family. The milkman would fill 2 little cups with creamy milk for Mum and her sister to drink while he waited - they thought it was such a treat. For the rest of the week they had tinned condensed milk.
How times have changed

[Bren In Pots]

We didn't have a fridge when I was a kid just a pantry with a 'slab' and I'm sure the turkey was still on it until Easter or it seemed like it at the time.

[Dorothy rouse]

Oh that has just brought back another 'milk memory' , creamy top of the milk, we used to skim it off and whisk it with a hand whisk! And would have it on lovely tinned fruit. Yuk!

I also can remember the first yogurts Ski, with fruit, my mum. Wouldn't even try it, 'sour milk' in her eyes.

[Bill HH]

We used to hang meat until it was green in the safe, never did me much harm.

The fact is our immune system needs challenging, if you live in extreemly hygenic conditions you become more prone to infections because your immune system has not aquired the relevant anti bodies. i have been on more food hygene courses than i can shake a stick at and even the instructors agree this to be the case. The reason commercial kitchens (in my case a care home) need to follow these rules is that you have no idea how immune your customers are. But in your own home you can afford to be less rigid. The old saying is "You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die" For all you kids out there a peck is 2 gallons.

I am not rubbishing food hygene, it is vital, particularly where meat and chilled food is concerned, but we are carrying it all a bit too far in our own homes I think.

[RedThorn]

Meat cooler was hessian sacks sprayed with water ... The wind blew through it to keep it cool. Rest of meat was seasoned and hung until dry.

Either eaten as is or sliced and rehydrated and cooked in stews etc....

Not all places had electrickery..... The roads were strip roads and cars were ancient( nought new in Africa....) so if the hill was particularly steep you turned the car around and reversed up


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[Bill HH]

You were lucky! We lived int shoe box int middle ut road. The only meat we ad were nail clipping soup ont Sundays.

[Dorothy rouse]

[QUOTE=RedThorn;1180943]Meat cooler was hessian sacks sprayed with water ... The wind blew through it to keep it cool. Rest of meat was seasoned and hung until dry.

Either eaten as is or sliced and rehydrated and cooked in stews etc....


Whoah, not heard of that before, but I suppose the meat was actually 'preserved' by the use of seasoning, bit like salting and pickling of veg, or drying. Biltong? That's dried and preserved strips of meat isn't?

[RedThorn]

That's the stuff very rich to those not used to it.
Excess sausage was dealt with in same way... Hung to dry that is.
Was usually hung from wire hooks in the garage .....



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[Johan]

I am from South Africa, Cape Town, a fair weather/warm climate, where there is no such thing as frost or snow.
I am currently disabled due to several surgery operations on both legs and just had my last one. I had to stop planting as I could not bend or squad at all.
I decided to plant a few seed to maintain the seed only.
My cucumber varieties I am interested in saving now: Kyoto (seed from 2006 and 2009 came up - the 2006 is however slower), Tanja (2006 - came up), Telegraph improved (2006 and 2009 came up) and Soyu (2005 came up, but very slow) So it appears that cucumber last quite long but get slower and have less percentage of germination.
Tomatoes: Tropic (2006 came up), Red Siberian (2006 and 2009 came up)., Nicolaevna(2006 came up), and Red Khaki (2013 came up). The last one is not at all faster than any of the others. Brandywine OTV (2006 must still come up).
I am still waiting for my various varieties of peppers (they take up to three weeks normally to germinate).

So most seeds will germinate, even if older than normal, but not forever. Pumpkin and squash will not last 30 years according to my experience, but it is not impossible. Some seed merchants claim that Tomato seeds can last easily 30 years (I am not shure if I believe that). Peppers also don't last very long in my experience.

So try and try and try. You can only score.

[Bill HH]

I have personal experience of some seeds coming up after 70 years, these were weeds. charlock covered a field I ploughed and also had thorn apples in it, never seen either before but an old neighbour remembered the charlock from when he was a child.

[Jeanied]

That reminds me, Bill - when I first bought this house a thornapple appeared in the garden that summer - beautiful it was too!

I tried some 10 year old parsnip seeds in a plastic container on damp kitchen towel in the airing cupboard. The seed does not die all at once, it does so gradually. So after 10 years most of the seeds failed but I still had some germinating! Enough to make it worth trying.

[Bill HH]

That reminds me, Bill - when I first bought this house a thornapple appeared in the garden that summer - beautiful it was too!

I tried some 10 year old parsnip seeds in a plastic container on damp kitchen towel in the airing cupboard. The seed does not die all at once, it does so gradually. So after 10 years most of the seeds failed but I still had some germinating! Enough to make it worth trying.

Yes I couldnt believe it when I saw them, a most spectacular plant but very toxic i am told.

added:

I have jst been to read up on this plant and now realise i could have got high on this stuff, and there was me in the 60's pretending to get high on my moms water retention tablets. It does say it is highly toxic in higher doses so maybe i had a lucky escape.

[Johan]

The Brandywine OTV seed also came up today.
I will keep the seed longer to see how long I can stretch the germination.
I looked at the seedlings today again and compared growth. the 2009 Kyoto is about 70 mm high but the 2006 ones are only 10 mm high. So older seed is definitely less vigorous.