Seeds not Germinating well?

Is anyone else having problems with seeds not geminating well this year?
Cucumbers had to be replated this year, and so did beans and beets.
From plackaged seed we are getting about 50% to come up with beets, if that. Yet some seeds that my I told my boyfriend to try that expired in 2002 are coming up at about 50% too. That was interesting.
The flower seeds that I get from people who collect them seem to come up much better.

It's too much to hope that it's a trend and not me being inept!

LOL, lets hope not , becaue my boyfriend is inept too then, and he has never had the problem in the past.
He planted cucumbers the first time around, and only one came up. There were no signs that any thing had dug up the seeds, like the chipmucks dug up my sunflowers.....Grrrrrrrrrrr.
So he did some digging around in the soil. It was like they had just disintegrated. No signs of them, yet beets that expired in 2002 are coming up........go figure.

Sheesh.

I did lose a lot of cuke & squash seeds until I figured out the field mice were having... well, a field day! But I think 3 out maybe 40 watermelon seeds made it, same with cantaloupes and darned if the plants are just barely hanging on. Just not right. Least my tomatoes are looking great!

Don't you just love the little critters?
2 years ago, before we put small fencing around the garden, something was coming into it and eating out beets. Each beet had been chewed on. Not the tops, the beet itself. Grrrr.
Last year we put fencing that has smaller hole in it around the garden, and then we got hit by a huge hale storm. And I mean huge hale. It was like the garden came to a stand still after that.
This is the damage that was done to one of the tomatoes.

Ouch. Well, at least you knew it was the hail and not a worm or something - blek.

Stupidly enough, I do love them - I've found them in several places that they should not be and just let them go. Soft heart, soft brain, hard to tell the diff.

LOL, we have more chipmucks around I think. And my boyfriend was thinking that was field mice that were getting the beets. Don't know what would take a few bits out of each one otherwise.

Hey, maybe we need to hire some chipmunks. They do a great job of planting the corn from the chicken food all over the lawn. Every now and then we have a corn growing in the lawn.