Come to think of it, where are your seeds? No doubt they are resting somewhere; after all, seeds are plants enjoying their ultimate state of dormancy. But are they in a comfortable place, protected from heat, humidity and strong light? Did you put them in order before you forgot about them last fall? Maybe you should check on them, and take the first step toward actualizing your garden fantasies by tending to the needs of sleeping beans or tiny onion seeds.

Seeds deserve good care–a diverse collection is valuable property, both financially and personally. Should an enterprising mouse enjoy a midnight snack of the heirloom mahogany marigolds passed down from your great-grandmother, no amount of money could replace them. There’s no better time than now to organize your seed collection into secure containers.

В 

FIRST SORT YOUR SEEDS
Begin by setting aside seeds you collected last summer, which are probably floating around in a multitude of paper or plastic bags (we’ll get to those in a minute). Then divide the rest into categories that reflect each plant’s place in the garden. For example, you might start with three piles–veggies, herbs and flowers–and then divide each of those piles into cool-season and warm-season groups. As you sort, look at the packets and check them for dates. Toss seeds that are too old to germinate well, or those that you tried and didn’t like. Use the “How Long Will Seeds Keep?” list to take some of the confusion out of this step.

If you have a lot of seeds, you may want to further sort them into plant groups such as beans, salad crops or cucurbits (members of the cucumber family). The main thing is to come up with a plan that suits your garden. Next, make lists of what’s in each pile so you won’t have to dig through your collection before you put together a seed order or get ready to plant (big index cards are great for this). Once you make your lists, use rubber bands to keep seed packets together by category. I keep these lists–along with recent seed order invoices–in a file folder taped to the lid of my storage box.

SEED STORAGE STRATEGIES
Seeds store best when they are kept cool, dry and dark. Address the dryness issue first by finding an airtight container that will protect your seeds from changes in humidity. Glass jars with tight-fitting’ lids work well, or you can use a plastic storage bin with a tight-fitting, snap-on lid. Or, do both! After enduring years of disarray, I found that a plastic storage bin, outfitted with homemade cardboard partitions, is perfect for my needs. The partitions keep veggie, herb and flower seeds separate, plus there’s a fourth section for supplies. (See “Seven Seed Box Tips,” below.)

Carole B. Turner, author of Seed Sowing and Saving, emphasizes that seeds, being very much alive, do best when storage conditions are consistent. Fluctuations in temperature and moisture can cause the resting embryos inside the seeds to start growing and then stop again; with each surge and lull, the embryo may use up stored food meant to support germination.

The best place in my house to keep seeds is the basement, where winter temperatures hover around 60 degrees and summer temperatures rarely go above 75 degrees. To decide if your basement or another room will work to store seeds, consider the temperature and humidity levels. Combined, they should not equal more than 100. For example, since my storage temperatures are moderate (60 degrees to 75 degrees) I should try to keep humidity low (40 percent to 25 percent): Sixty degree temperature plus 40 percent humidity equals 100.

If I open the seed box often in damp weather, I place a container of silica gel (sold as closet dehumidifiers at department stores) in the box for a day or two.

If you can’t avoid fluctuating temperature or humidity levels at home, consider storing your seed box where you work, if it is air conditioned. Or you can refrigerate or freeze your seeds in airtight containers. Just be sure seeds are thoroughly dry before you freeze them; seeds that are not completely dry or have been exposed to high humidity levels can expand and burst when placed in a freezer. In humid summer weather, place seeds you plan to freeze in an airtight container with a packet of silica gel for two days before you freeze them. In winter, when indoor humidity levels are usually very low, air drying seeds for a day or two before freezing them is usually sufficient.

Some people freeze all of their seeds, but unless you need to extend their normal life span, this may be a waste of energy. If you do refrigerate or freeze your seeds, be sure to allow the containers to reach room temperature before you open them–a step that keeps condensation from forming inside the containers, which the dry seeds will absorb as excess moisture.

CLEANING HOME-GROWN SEEDS
When I tidy up my seed box in winter, I always encounter crumpled paper bags containing seeds I’ve saved from the garden that need cleaning–a fine agenda for a long, cold evening.

You can make or buy framed seed-sifting screens that have holes of various shapes and diameters, or you can try my homemade version that consists of embroidery hoops–purchased at a thrift store for 50 cents each–and several pieces of nylon net and tulle, which you can get at a fabric shop for less than a dollar. Stackable, washable and easy to store right in my seed box, the hoop screens make it possible to separate seeds from chaff quickly by placing a coarse, quarter-inch mesh nylon screen over a finer screen outfitted with one-eighth-inch tulle.В To accommodate small or oddly shaped seeds, it’s easy to double up with either fabric.

Next comes a crucial task–sorting through the collected seeds to remove the small and the weak. Just as pulling up slow or spindly seedlings while thinning a row favors the most vigorous plants, a second round of selection for the most robust seeds can make a huge difference in the quality of the next season’s crop. With large seeds you can do this visually, by picking out any seeds that are small, discolored or broken. But with smaller seeds, you will get faster results by placing them in a clear drinking glass or jar with a half cup or so of water. Swirl the seeds and water for 30 seconds, then pour off the excess water along with any floaters–weak seeds will float because of poorly filled embryos or damage from feeding insects.В Dump the heavy seeds from the bottom of the glass onto a drying screen, paper towel or, in the case of seeds that develop a sticky coating when wet (as most mustard family plants do), a baking pan with a nonstick coating. Let the seeds dry for a day or two before packing them up and storing them in paper envelopes, pill bottles or airtight glass jars. Label and date each seed container.

SEED SWAPPING SUGGESTIONS
Putting your seed box in order may take a few hours, but one immediate payoff is discovering that you need to get more seeds! There’s plenty of time to buy them through a mail-order company (where you are more likely to get high-quality seeds than from racks in stores), or you can swap seeds with other gardeners. Either way, you’ll want to balance various variety-related characteristics such as flavor, color, nutrition, weather readiness, disease resistance and productivity. We try to help with those decisions by suggesting outstanding varieties in every gardening article we publish, but you should not deny yourself the pleasure of drooling over the pages of your favorite seed catalogs.

Perhaps this will be the year you commit to helping preserve worthy heirloom varieties, or maybe you’re ready to start selecting and saving seeds from your favorite open-pollinated crops. Either process will go faster and be more fun if you network with an organization such as the Seed Savers Exchange (www.seedsavers.org). You also may be able to find a group based in your region. For example, the University of Georgia now hosts the Southern Seed Legacy program (www.uga.edu/ebl/ssl), which helps members share seeds of nearly 500 Southern heirloom varieties. Dozens of master gardener associations in the United States sponsor local seed swaps once or twice a year. In Canada, Seeds of Diversity (www.seeds.ca) sponsors more than 40 Seedy Saturday events that always include swapping opportunities. If you’re new to saving seeds, start with a crop that’s easy to grow in your climate, because excellent growing conditions contribute to the production of bigger, better seeds. For more about saving seeds, read “Grow Your Own Seeds,” at www.MotherEarthNews.com.

Your seeds need you to keep them safe and strong. Soon, the day will arrive when they’ll need you to do other things they cannot manage on their own, such as getting from your seed box to that cushy seed bed you’ve been dreaming about. Such partnerships between people and seeds have been going on for millennia, with each side serving the other to create a more productive and beautiful planet. Right now it’s your turn to act.

Seven Seed Box Tips
Gather up your seeds and get organized by using a storage box big enough to house your entire collection. Then consider these ideas and interior features:

• Install partitions, or use separate small boxes for various groups of seeds.

• Sort packets into categories, and keep like seeds together with rubber bands.

• Make color-coded paper packets from envelopes: here, green is used for veggias, yellow for flowers and lavender for herbs.

• Embroidery hoops outfitted with cloth netting make seed cleaning fast and easy.

• Store bulky seeds in small glass jars or pill bottles (baby food jars work great).

• Packets of silica gel can serve as desiccants.

• Make a written inventory of what you have, then stash your records in an envelope attached to the lid.

When to Skip Seeds and Buy Transplants
Some say it started with celery in the late 1970s. As the cost of hybrid seed increased, commercial growers in California found they could save time. money and water by transplanting seedlings rather than sowing seeds. Meanwhile, small-scale greenhouse growers in Ohio and Pennsylvania tapped into an exploding consumer demand for ready-to-plant flower seedlings, and Canadian government agencies mobilized to get their fledgling greenhouse industry off the ground.

It worked. By the 1990s, gardeners everywhere embraced the instant results they could get with bedding plants, and vegetables began to earn shelf space alongside petunias and begonias. Twenty years ago, you could buy tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and onions as seedlings. but industry experts assumed gardeners would not spend a dollar for a zucchini plant when they could get 20 times as many plants by sowing a packet of seeds, They were wrong. The majority of today’s gardeners don’t think twice about loading their trunks with container-grown cucumbers or cantaloupes, and there is even some horticultural research to support the plants-not-seeds approach.

Certainly there are risks involved. Transplanting can injure or traumatize roots, and plants that throw down delicate taproots as soon as they sprout (carrots and dill, for example) are difficult to handle as seedlings. With eager-beaver seedlings such as beans, squash and corn. messing with seedlings is worthwhile only if you’re growing a tightly managed intensive garden. It just makes sense to bypass containers, petting mix, grow lights and damping off worries by waiting for the right time to sow fast-growing peas, beans and beets, end difficult transplanters, such as dill and carrots, right in the garden.

With tomatoes, peppers and other slow-growing crops you do want to plant out as seedlings, there is a strong case for growing your own. You will have a huge selection of varieties to choose from, you’ll save lots of money, and you won’t be disappointed with poor performance from stressed-out seedlings that have been sitting on shelves weeks after they should have been put into the ground. You will enjoy the late winter companionship of your seedlings as they bask in the glow of a fluorescent light, and you’ll escape the mass*market loop dominated by seedlings raised on chemical diets in fumigated greenhouses, Besides, growing your own seedlings is just plain fun. The article “Seed Starting Basics” at www. MotherEarthNews.com will walk you through the process.

How Long Will Seeds Keep?
When stored in a cool, dark place with constant tow humidity, vegetable seeds typically remain viable for one to 10 years, depending on species. Freezing can triple the storage potential of most seeds, but this list reflects average seed longevity under good but non-frozen conditions.

1 TO 2 YEARS

corn
leeks
okra
onions
parsley
peppers

3 TO 4 YEARS

beans
beets
carrots
chard
lettuce
peas
squash
spinach

4 YEARS OR MORE

broccoli
Brussels sprouts
cabbage
cantaloupe
cauliflower
celery
Chinese cabbage
cucumber
eggplant
kale
kohlrabi
pumpkin
radish
tomato
turnip
watermelon

By Barbara Pleasant, Mother Earth News, Dec/Jan2007

A few months ago, a woman I’ll call Nancy attended one of my seminars. Nancy had been through hard times: Three years earlier her house had burned down; then her husband’s National Guard unit shipped out to Iraq, and when he returned he was angry, depressed, and traumatized. The couple got therapy yet grew further apart until, finally, her husband asked for a divorce. Nancy realized she had a choice: She could drown in self-pity or move forward. After seeing how the trauma of war had torn up her husband, she wanted to make a difference with her life. So, at 35, she enrolled in nursing school.

I think even Nancy was surprised by her resilience. But her leap into a life of greater meaning came from a simple change in outlook. She shifted her focus from her own problems to the difficulties of others. And that one change brought her clarity and peace.

В 

This time of global uncertainty challenges each of us to create our own sense of security, That doesn’t mean you need to follow Nancy’s lead into a nursing career, but keeping an eye on what really matters will help you maintain your balance when things around you seem to fall apart. Here are a few practical steps that can help you become more resilient.

Don’t Let Bad News Overwhelm You
Journalists are biased. I don’t mean politically — I mean that although good news rarely gets repeated, bad news is aired again and again in living color. But one exposure to mayhem is more than enough. Research by psychologist Turhan Canli, PhD, and his colleagues demonstrated that emotionally intense images get deeply etched in memory because they activate the amygdala. That’s the part of the brain that processes threats to our survival, and it’s involved in anxiety and panic. Why program it with frightening images that have staying power? Instead, during times of disaster, avoid being overwhelmed emotionally and physiologically by rationing TV, Internet, and radio news. You’ll get all the information you need in a few minutes; after that, it’s just more of the same. Place inspiring images where you’ll see them often, because you’ll remember them just as readily as distressing ones (and more easily than neutral photos).

Know What You Don’t Know
There’s an old story about a Ukrainian priest who walks to church each morning. One day, a Cossack stops him and asks imperiously where he’s going. “I don’t know,” says the priest. The Cossack is furious — after all, the priest always went to church — and hauls him off to jail. There, the Cossack asks why he lied. “I didn’t lie,” the priest replies. “I really didn’t know that I was going to jail.” We really don’t know what will happen either. People who always expect the worst tend to be stressed-out and to suffer worse health than those who think more optimistically. But worry about a situation often turns out to be worse than the reality. Make plans to avert possible disaster, but repeat to yourself that you really don’t know anything other than what’s happening at this very moment.

Learn from the Super-Resilient
Dennis S. Charney, MD, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, has investigated people who suffered extreme stress and emerged psychologically intact. With colleague Steven M. Southwick, MD, of Yale University, he studied 750 men, mostly pilots in the Vietnam War, who were held captive for up to 8 years and subjected to torture or solitary confinement — or both — but avoided depression. These men shared a number of characteristics. Among other things, they were optimistic and altruistic, had a moral compass based on firmly held beliefs, used humor, had strong role models, and were guided by a sense of mission or purpose in life. You can nurture these traits in yourself. Look for ways to help others less fortunate than yourself, for instance, or strengthen your sense of right and wrong by reading biographies of inspiring men and women.

Explore Faith and Spirituality
Many of the POWs studied by Charney and Southwick said they prayed daily during their captivity; others didn’t. You don’t need to be religious to be resilient, in other words, but a sense that life has meaning does seem to help. Simply exploring different religious and philosophical traditions can deepen your sense of why you’re here and what you think the purpose of your life is. These qualities can help you to endure and bounce back from adversity.

People such as Nancy, who face difficulty and emerge stronger, rekindle the hope in all our hearts. My holiday wish for you is to remember the good and the beautiful that are the essence of life — and to resolve to keep a positive outlook in the year ahead. That way you can become more resilient and help create a better future for the generations to come.

“Worry about a situation often turns out to be worse than the reality”

3 more stay-strong tips

• Make one thing better The world’s problems can be overwhelming. Pick just one and try to improve it, whether that means making fewer car trips to help the environment or revitalizing an abandoned neighborhood garden.
• Have an emergency plait Assembling a security kit can make you feel more in control. Include comfort items (a journal, photos of loved ones) along with food, water, and first aid supplies.
• Keep an eye on the upside Set your Internet home page to a site like www.goodnewsnow.com, which features news stories that inspire. Reading about people cooperating to rebuild war-torn countries is much healthier than focusing on hatred.

By Joan Borysenko, Prevention, Dec2006

1.В Be competitive: “To succeed in business you have to want to win,” says Liz Lange, founder and president of Liz Lange Maternity. “Too often, women feel they have to be nice. Don’t,” says Lange.
2.В It’s not about friendship: “Women want everyone to like them but it doesn’t really matter what people think of you,” says Renee Edelman, senior VP of Edelman. “It’s that you get the job done and deliver results.”
3.В Stand up for yourself: Restaurateur Donatella Arpaia is responsible for two restaurants and 140 people. “I protect my interests, their interests. If someone is going to mess with that, I cut them out like cancer.”
4.В Trust your instincts: Dozens of people tried to talk Lange out of growing her business, now a major force with nationwide distribution at Target. “There are a lot of naysayers out there,” says Lange. “Shut out negative noise andgo for it.”
5.В Always project confidence: Oscar-winning film producer Cathy Schulman says presentation is key. “When someone asks ‘How are you?’ don’t go into a litany of what’s wrong with your life,” says Schulman. Instead, present yourself as in control and happy.
6.В Own your success: Say goodbye to fear and insecurity, says Arpaia. Have confidence in your decisions, and make them. 7.В Reach out to other women: When Lange started her business, she called every woman (and man) she admired and asked to meet. “Don’t be shy,” she says. Schulman begins each day by noting colleagues’ accomplishments with a quick call or e-mail. “We don’t have golf so create other communities of support.”
8.В Insist on being well paid: Don’t view wanting money as inelegant or “not classy,” says Schulman. “Men make decisions on the bottom line. Why shouldn’t we?”
9.В It’s OK to make mistakes: When Arpaia realized a business partnership was doomed, she cut ties and moved on. “Don’t obsess over things,” she says.
10.В Be a problem-solver: If something on Schulman’s desk seems difficult to deal with, she tackles it first. “Big problems are an opportunity to grow.”

В 

By: Scelfo, Julie, Newsweek, 9/25/2006

Bring others into your conversation
This tip is one that Carol Blood often uses when attending meetings of the Sarpy County Chapter. “(When you’re networking) grab passersby and introduce them to your new contact. This will make you look gracious and well connected. It also shows the other person that you care about their personal success.

“Find clever ways to introduce people,” she adds. “Can you find a humorous connection between the two businesses?”

Be clear
According to Connie Sparks, if we do not clearly articulate our goals or intentions, we will not succeed Connie is the Valencia Professional Express Network formations chair in Santa Clarita, Calif. “To build successful relationships, it’s important to know how to listen, when to listen, when to speak and what to say. This is my personal golden rule.”

Slow down
“In this hurry-up world, we keep waiting for things to slow down and instead they seem to get faster,” says Cookie Tuminello, charter member of Louisiana’s first Express Network in Baton Rouge and business and personal success coach. “The need for good, clear, respectful communication is imperative. Whether it is in personal or professional relationships people want two things: They want to know they matter and they want to be treated with dignity and respect.”

Source: Women in Business, Sep/Oct2006