Freezing seeds to kill insects
If you have room in your
freezer, you can store all of your seeds there to extend their
longevity, but I froze my kale seeds for a different
reason. While harvesting, I saw lots of insects
wriggling around, and I've noticed in general that bigger seeds
(especially corn and beans) are prone to insect damage if you take them
directly from the garden to a seed storage box. Even though the
insects I noticed at first glance in my kale harvest were benign, I
decided to head off the problem in my big stash of seeds.
Freezing seeds is
extremely simple, but you can do it wrong. The potential problem
is getting your seeds wet, either by putting them in the freezer in a
paper package, or by defrosting them incorrectly. As you can see
in this post's second photo, cold seeds coming out of the freezer pull
moisture out of the air, but that isn't an issue as long as you wait to
open plastic containers until they're thoroughly thawed. 
(The
air inside the container should be low in moisture, so you won't see
condensation on the inside as long as it stays sealed.)
For basic seed-saving
tips to make your homestead more self-sufficient (and cheaper) without
much work, check out the September
volume of Weekend Homesteader. We don't save all of
our own seeds, but enjoy saving the easiest ones like tomatoes and
beans.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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