"songbird" wrote in message
news
Farm1 wrote:
...
This will be the first season that I've tried growing capsicum (peppers)
from seed saved last year so I don't yet know by 1st hand experience how
viable saved capsicum seed may be. I did however check what my 2 seed
saving books say.

The 1st book which is USian but which I don't like a lot is 'Seed to
Seed'
and it says 50% viabiliy at 3 years if stored correctly. The Australian
book 'The Seed Savers Handbook' says they remain viable for 5 years if
stored correctly.

Sounds like you should be OK if either or both of them are right.

does either say anything about freezing as a
possibility for pepper seeds? i would suspect
not, but ...

I've just checeked and neither mention freezing as a storage option - just
the cool dark place option.

one correspondent uses the refrigerator and
reports acceptable germination rates for some
peppers after almost 20 years.

i don't do my own pepper or tomato starts
here... would rather keep worms i guess.

I'm waiting for a little more heat to do either and i"m also going ot do
physalis at the same time.