In 2021 I planted my zucchetti in April. I put a milk jug over each one and walked away. Of the 12, one survived and became my best producer for the season. I replanted later, but there was definitely some cold tolerance in that one plant.
There is definetely variance in squash cold tolerance, but there are limits to it. Mostly it’s above freezing temperatures and range of tolerange below freezing is very minimal. Once in a decade frost would most likely wipe out everything and all adaptations. Milk jugs do make big difference and probably keep out most of harder frosts. Protection is good way of gradually achieving tolerance that could eventually be enough to survive unassisted. It’s a delicate balance.
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Lauren, I find it incredibly hopeful to hear that you’ve been able to get your warm weather plants started early with milk jugs on top of them. Woot! I’m definitely going to try it.
Getting back to the original topic, I think three equally valuable ways to use extra seeds are:
- Eating them, if they’re edible.
- Giving them away to other people who will use them.
- Doing a mass planting in extremely stressed conditions, with the plan of most of them dying, to see if you can find something that can survive it. Then you can deliberately cross it with everything else, disproportionately plant its seeds next year, or just let it casually cross into the landrace in order to have that valuable trait in your population going forward.
Jesse, I think you’re absolutely right: testing for cold tolerance is going to waste a whole ton of seeds with potentially wonderful genes! Which is why it’s best to do it when you have a whole lot of seeds that you wouldn’t otherwise ever be able to use.
This is one of those “You get what you prioritize first, and you might not get what you prioritize second” things. If the flavor / productivity / growth habit / whatever of those extra seeds doesn’t matter because you’ll never be able to use all of them, you might as well put them in an extreme situation to find out if any of them have something special to offer that you really want to preserve.
This is an excellent spinoff topic, and I want people to be able to find this information later, so I’ve made a spinoff thread here.
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I currently have 30 packets of tomato seed. Some bought, some saved last year, some given to me very generously,… But it’s not alot really because all the packets fit in a big peanut butter jar. Instant organized. Currently my seed packets are all organized into these big PB jars and it’s simple and works for me.
This year my garden is going to be tons of experimentation and trying things. I hope to take notes on what I notice about the different varieties/lines. Then I can decide what I’m not going to continue growing and what is doing best. And what is tasty but maybe not doing so well. Am I favoring the management of determinant, indeterminate, or dwarf tomatoes.
At the moment I think I’m going to save seed in bulk and individually. For example some tomato seed from @WilliamGrowsTomatoes I want to save individually to send back to him. Anything I think is stand out will get saved individually with notes for myself. And saving bulk seed for sharing and future direct seeded tomato aspirations.
For squash I have a grex of Moschata, Maxima, and Pepo. Each will have bulk seed from any good enough fruit. And each will have a bulk seed from the stand out best fruits. I’m already much more excited about the Moschata and Maxima so the pepo might be cut if it’s not enticing me after harvest. Then those seed I’ll probably pass on and be able to more easily focus some attention on a pepo summer squash in the main garden.
This is pretty much my plan for everything. I already have a storage tote of sauce jars I’ve been collecting. I’m growing alot of squash and corn so I’m probably going to add a couple lidded 5gal buckets for those. 
Luckily I’m able to store lots of seed and for now I am making the time to save seed. I’m already prepping tomatoes for sauce, it’s not adding much time to scrape out seed. Already have to clean guts from squash, just plop it into a bowl and easy to rinse while I tidy up from cooking.
Also luckily I’m able to have a large garden and other wasted spaces I can try to grow things as long as critters don’t get it first.
@UnicornEmily That’s a very good point. It might be hard to get many useful traits (atleast fast) into one plant so there definetely might be some cold tolerance in otherwise not as appealing plants. This seems to be the case many times with cold tolerant version of warm loving plants. Unless there has been lot of breeding to overcome this. Also in breeding cold tolerance it might be relatively easy to get lets say from +5C to 0(, but after that every -0.1C is ever harder step and natural variation in how cold that last frost is is so wide that you might be doing good selection several years and then bang something completely unexpected comes that nothing can survive. Maybe it would be good idea to breed for regrowth as well as I find it likely that some year the frost just is going to be too much. Not sure if small squash plants have that trait, but that might something to look for.
One Moscata, totally unexpectedly survived a killing frost. I was so excited! It had one fruit on it, and I babied that thing, covered and protected it. Then a few days later night temps hit 17 and it died. No viable seeds. But it does give me an idea of what is possible.
It’s good sign that it can take cold, but it might be that it didn’t quite get frost in that particular spot that helped it survival. Cold is not evenly spred out and since squash are so tender it might be just 0.5C difference that gave it the edge. This year for me when killing frost killed tomatoes, although all leaves were gone, there was some difference in frost damage to fruits between one row end and the other. The more damaged end was the one that is just slightly (maybe 10-20cm) downhill, but it’s very hard to see the hill without flow of water. So it must have done just that much difference. Also water would concentrate there after heavy rain so it’s definetely a spot that could collect cold air.
Huh. Now that you mention it, my sole tomato survivor was on the north side of a big bushy brussels sprout plant! I wonder if that protected it a wee bit, and it made the difference?
I can’t see it making THAT much difference, though, because the tomato leaves were all resting on top of the brussels sprouts leaves. I was too lazy to put the tomato plant in a cage, so I wrapped it around the other plant as a trellis. 
I would not assume it didn’t make difference. Frost tolerance, for those that generally aren’t frost tolerant, is in very small range and natural variation in temperature might be much greater. Frost also might look colder than it is. Ice forms protective layer and formation of ice is dependant on other variations than just actual temperature. It just might look lot colder than it actually is. Same plant might die in same temperature it survived in other conditions. I also just noticed that one of my digital thermometer (that is quite new) showed 2C (4.5F) colder than mercury thermometer. So it’s possible to assume that it’s been colder outside than it’s actually been and that frost or damage might feel like it’s come from far worse freeze. Not sure what is considered hard/light freeze in other places, but here first light frost generally is -1-2C (around 27-30F) and hard frosts are closer to -5C (23F) at ground level although it might get cooler than that very fast. I’m curious to see if any of the wild tomatoes and chilies that I have for next season have any tolerance, but it might be luck of the draw if first frost is even light enough.
Hmm. So what I really ought to do is plant some of its seeds right near overwintering brassicas, and some on their own away from any other big plants. That’ll help me sort out whether it’s genetic, environmental, or both.
Either way would be good news. If it’s environmental, having a big brassica next to the tomato plant that I could lean its vines on worked great, and I’d be happy to repeat that in the future.
I will say that it survived something like ten light frosts late in the season, and had no frost damage on any portion of the plant, including the side that was fully exposed to the air.
Not saying it’s the brassicas, but it actually might make sense. It’s a very know phenomenon that tree cover will keep heat. There is a well known myth that moonlight would have a cooling effect, but it’s just tree cover that insulates. There are some science stuff youtube videos about it. So heavy leaved leafed brassicas could make some difference also by stopping heat from escaping. That might have been part of the reason for my tomatoes (open versus wide bushy) although not only. Had also big lump of about 10 ground cherries that had most killed in the first light frost, but some of the inner most parts were still alive after several weeks and many heavy frosts. I had them too tightly together so they were about metre tall at the centre so there was definetely some cover even after leaves went to mush.
Definitely something I should test, then!
If brassicas work that well as a cold shield, that would be even better news than my having great tomato genetics for cold hardiness in those seeds. I’ve been thinking I’d like to use brassicas as a cold shield for my banana plants. If that’s a technique that’s likely to work, it’d be awesome.
With brassicas being cold hardy, I can see the possibility that it might affect plants around them, either through the soil or other processes. Like bean leaves closing in the heat, or wild lettuce being the last thing in the garden to frost. Possibly some chemical reaction is protecting the brassicas, so the area around the plant is slightly warmer?
If you mean protecting roots and lower stem during colder months, then yes it might have some affect if there is enough leaf cover to work as a barrier. They will also collect snow during cold spells that will insulate even more and create air pockets. But effect works only as high as brassicas and after that it soon doesn’t make a difference.
Oh, that’s a very interesting possibility. We know that older trees can exchange nutrients to help out younger trees in a forest, and they’ll do it even for trees of different species. What if much more cold tolerant plants can (and may) do something similar through the roots to help out other less cold tolerant plants near them?
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Some years ago I noticed that the leaves of wild lettuce had liquid water on them when everything around them had a thin layer of frost. Whatever process kept those leaves from freezing, I bet it would have an effect on the environment around the plant, no matter how slight. There is definitely something going on with cold tolerant plants.
Ours not to question why, ours just to figure out how we can use it to our advantage!
Ha ha ha ha! Yes, but if I examine the gift horse’s mouth, it may help me figure out how to replicate its oral health for my other horses! 
You’re definitely right that “what” is more important than “why” or “how,” but of course I want to know the answers to those, too.
I was being facetious.
Ah! Heh! Sorry, I guess I took you a bit too literally. 