I know this is a scenario few of you will be able to relate to, but I wound up planting a lot more seeds this year than I originally planned on

So I'm thinking what am I going to plant these extra seeds in, and I remember I have some old Jiffy pellets from my father's basement. These are at least 35, maybe as much as 45 years old. I figure, these don't go bad, they'll be fine.

So I pour some warm water on them...nothing happens. It's been about 3 hours and maybe they are at half-height (these seem to be the medium size/42mm). I guess they are fossilized. Hopefully by the morning they will have fully expanded.

I've used some old ones and they expanded fine, but they were probably only about 10 years young.

It takes at least 24 hrs for my old Jiffy pellets to totally expand, though I never had any that old!

What kind of mesh do these old ones have? I used them 20 years ago but didn't like the outer netting so I removed them when ready to plant. Maybe they were made of different material back then. Kinda cool to have something from so long ago still viable.

peebee wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 12:57 am What kind of mesh do these old ones have?

The mesh seems the same.

peebee wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 12:57 am Kinda cool to have something from so long ago still viable.

Hey! I'm that old and I'm still viable!

Maybe I just don't remember how tall these 42mm ones get, the Jiffy site says 1-1.5" tall, mine are about 1" this morning.

yeah, mine are a few years old and only expand to about 1/2 their supposed to be size.

peebee wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 12:57 am What kind of mesh do these old ones have? I used them 20 years ago but didn't like the outer netting so I removed them when ready to plant. Maybe they were made of different material back then. Kinda cool to have something from so long ago still viable.

Many years ago, I used Jiffy #7 peat pellets. I also learned you should remove the netting. I simply quit using them lol.

I had to replant something that got killed by the frost last month, so I used another one of these fossilized pellets...I found by massaging it I got it to expand to the normal height, so maybe these aren't going in the garbage after all.