Alcohol should last as long as it is kept well capped. Diluted neem looses its effectiveness pretty quickly as far as its active ingredient (azadirachtin) is concerned. However, the oil part of neem should still be effective for a while. You will have really shake it well every time you use it. The oil tries separate from the water when left undisturbed. Oil is organic matter and so it is possible that a diluted version can start decomposing/fermenting. A smell test should let you know if it is OK to use. Pure insecticidal soap in water should remain effective. I do not know how long but a few months should be fine. I am not sure of household soaps since there are tons of other ingredients in there besides soap. In fact, one should avoid regular household soaps on plants anyway.

There should be an expiration date on it somewhere, right? On another canning forum someone posted this response to the same question. It's from Kraft Foods who makes Certo: "We recommend that you use the pectin in your recipe by the "Best When Used By" date. We cannot guarantee the same quality or rate of recipe success if used after that date." They go on to talk about how it should not be frozen and that fridge storage won't extent its life. In my personal experience - which is limited with the liquid pectins - it is not worth keeping any of them past their exp. date. Dave

Depends on what he sprayed. Here is a reponse I wrote recently tgat asked somewhat of the same question. Glyphosate (Round Up) has absolutely no residual soil activity. The chemical binds so extremely tightly to soil particles that it cannot be taken up by the roots of plants. It ONLY affects plants through contact with the leaves and non-woody stems. I have dozens of feet of broccoli, onions, cabbage, lettuce, and potatoes currently growing that can attest to that. I use glyphosate on all my beds prior to planting, and I use the higher rate, a 2% solution for my backpack sprayer, to try and kill any perennial weeds (namely bindweed that has a nasty habit of showing up after any kind of cultivation). If the herbicide that drifted onto your plants was glyposate, any that also landed on your soil simply cannot effect any plants grown in that soil. Glyphosate actually remains in the soil for quite some time. Again, as it is bound so extremely tightly to the soil particles, it is pretty much insoluble and barely moves through the soil profile. Soil texture does play a small role in this however. Coarser textured soils cannot "hold" as much glyphosate as finer textured ones, but that is easily alleviated by using a lower rate. The "rate" that may have arrived via drift would be fairly low and wouldn't have a problem binding even to beach sand. 2, 4-d on the other has shown some residual soil activity in both soybeans and corn. It is recommended (and I think is now on the label) that you wait 7-14 days after applications of this herbicide to plant. Bear in mind a couple things with this. First, this is referring to fields that are directly sprayed with the recommended rate/acre of 2, 4-d. It is not a little bit of drift. The total amount of herbicide in this case would be well below that rate. Secondly it is talking about planting seeds, not larger transplants. So there MIGHT be some potential for 2, 4-d to effect plants subsequently planted in your soil, but I think that it is pretty unlikely. Dicamba on the other hand does have a more significant residual activity and can be translocated through the roots. It is commonly mixed with 2, 4-d. However, Dicamba is usually used a pretty high rate, especially if it is being used to target re-emergence of weeds. It is not usually used at these higher rates in the stuff folks buy at the Home Depot and again, the rate of herbicide drift is already significantly reduced. Imazapyr and imazapic have long residual soil activity and can both be translocated through the roots. These are mixed with glyphosate in products like Ground Clear. Now, unless you ask your neighbor what was sprayed you can't say for sure what was used, but these are about the most commonly used herbicides by the average homeowner. If yellowing leaves, and eventual death of your prior plants were the only effects, it would point to glyphosate or a glyphosate/imazapic or imazpyr mix, as glyphosate is an an amino acid inhibitor and the other two are enzyme inhibitors none of which cause the curling and cupping like 2, 4-d and dicamba which basically overload the plant with auxin and it grows itself to death. Many brands of Aminopyralid, like Milestone, is not registered for used even in agriculture, only in rangeland, conservation areas (such as CRP field) and utility/railroad rights of way. I'm not even sure if the Bureau of Land Management has approved it's use on their lands (if they have its only been in the past couple of years). I use it regularly at the Wildlife Refuge I work at, it has been approved by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, its about the best herbicide on the market for thistles and knapweed.

I've never tried freezing pollen BUT I got some seeds many years back from Cliff Orent that he had forgotten in his freezer for more than 3 years. He told me that and offered them to me if I wanted to give them a try. I did and lo and behold more than half of them germinated! So never say never, lol! Also, I was worried about my short season and if my hips were ripe enough too. I mentioned this on the Rose Hybridizers website and was told by several people that as long as there was any color showing on the hip it was probably ripe enough and to try the seeds. And you know, not all rose hips turn color when they are ripe. So if your hips are in the 90 to 120 day range of maturity I would harvest them and try them anyway.