The Ultimate Garden Guide to Seeds: Storing, Organizing, and Knowing if They're Still Viable
This guide to seeds will help you out whether you’re wanting to grow medicinal herbs, or perhaps grow a tea garden, or if you’re simply growing vegetables for your family’s table. Most gardeners end up with lots and lots of extra seeds, and it’s important to store them correctly and understand if they’re still viable (or not).
It’s mid-January, and if you’re like me, you’re getting just plain giddy at the idea of getting your seeds started for your summer garden! Do you have a ton of seed packets sitting around from last year? I know I sure do! I used to wonder if they were still good, and with good storage habits, they should last many years. Then there’s organization! What is the best way to store and organize all those seeds?
A few years ago, I wrote about the importance of having a Seed Bank in your home as part of your self-reliance practices, and knowing how to work with your leftover seeds is going to help you in these endeavors too.
Read on for some tips on storing and organizing your precious seeds so you have a ready supply you can trust from year to year.
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How Long Can You Store Seeds?
Seeds can have a surprisingly long shelf life. It just depends on how they’re packed and stored. Just like with medicinal herbs, the enemies of your dried seeds are heat, light, moisture, and air. If you can control those things, your seeds will likely last 3-5 years! In fact, I’ve heard that the seeds you purchase from some survival sites that are packaged in mylar envelopes might just last for decades!
The storage life of your seeds will also depend on how they’re treated and processed. Organic companies tend to minimally process their seeds. Other seeds that come from more agricultural organizations might “treat” their seeds with a chemical that helps them germinate and grow.
For example, most corn seeds you’ll get from an heirloom type seed store might last a couple of years. But I’ve had seeds my dad gave me that were treated with a pink chemical that is an anti-fungal agent that were nearly 7 years old!
Are you wondering what the pink chemical is? It’s applied by agricultural seed companies to keep corn seed from rotting in the ground before it can germinate. This seed should never be used as is for animal or human food! But the corn it produces on the stalk is fine.
Personally, I prefer the minimally treated seed. My favorite vegetable seed come from Botanical Interests and Bakers’ Creek. True Leaf Market is another company I really like, especially for cover crops and indoor sprouting.
Simple jars are one of my favorite ways to store seeds.
How to Store Your Seeds
Just like you store your dried medicinal herbs in an airtight glass jar in a cool, dark place, you’ll want to store your seeds the same way! You can just put your packets of seeds in a large jar, along with a dessicant to absorb moisture (if you’re in very high humidity, that is—-we don’t worry about this where we are) and an oxygen absorber or two, depending on the size of your jar.
I like to use a gallon jar with a good lid. You can then keep this in a cool room, ideally around 50-60 degrees. If you don’t have a room this cold, and you have extra space in your fridge, you can store your seeds there. However, most of us don’t have that kind of extra refrigerator space. If you can find the coldest spot in your home, you’re likely good to go.
If you have a garage or basement, this is another option for storing your seeds, as long as your garage doesn’t get super hot in the summer. When we were in Las Vegas, we kept our seeds in the house year round. However, I know people who live in cooler areas and have a well-insulated garage. A basement is best, if you have one.
We happen to have a storeroom that we’ve pretty much sealed off from the rest of the house, and it stays quite cool year round. This is now where I’m storing our medicinal herbs, tinctures, food storage, and of course, our seeds!
You can also purchase craft boxes with smaller containers that are also very helpful for storing seeds and keeping them organized and ready to go. This one is made for organizing photos, and it would work GREAT for seeds, too. And here’s one specifically made for seeds that’s very nice.
Shelf Life of Some Common Seeds
According to the University of California Master Gardeners site, here are some basic guidelines to let you know about how long your vegetable seeds might last:
1 year: onions, parsnips, parsley, salsify, and spinach
2 years: corn, peas, beans, chives, okra, dandelion
3 years: carrots, leeks, asparagus, turnips, rutabagas
4 years: peppers, chard, pumpkins, squash, watermelons, basil, artichokes and cardoons
5 years: most brassicas, beets, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, muskmelons, celery, celeriac, lettuce, endive, chicory
They got this information from Johnny’s Seed Company, but I couldn’t find the source there. So I’m using the University of California’s site as the reference, here.
And, in my experience with seeds and bulbs, I’d have to say this information is pretty spot on! Although, like I mentioned above, I’ve used corn seed that’s far older than two years. The way I work with this, is I always plant 3 to 4 kernels in the ground at a time, just in case the viability rate is low due to age. This generally seems to work fine.
However, if you want to perform a germination test on your older seeds, you can certainly do this!
If you do happen to have some old seeds, testing them before planting can save you some time and misery.
How to Test Your Seeds to See if They’ll Germinate
1) Take 10 seeds from a packet and place them on a damp, wrung out paper towel.
2) Gently fold up the towel and place it into a plastic bag. I zip up about 2/3 of the bag, but leave some room for a bit of air….or you’ll end up with moldy seeds.
3) Check the paper towel daily, and spritz with more water as needed if it’s become dry.
4) After the germination time recommended on the seed packet, check the seeds. You can then get a percentage of the total seeds that germinated. One seed: 10% viability (not good), two seeds, 20%, etc.
Now, you can make your decision about whether to plant those seeds or toss them into the compost pile.
How to Organize Your Seeds
I’m going to be honest, here. I’m a terrible seed organizer. I simply put them in my couple of big jars and call it good. However, for those of you who are super organized, you can get photo boxes and organize them this way. I’ve done this in the past, and these work great!
You can also find fancy boxes with drawers or other containers that keep your seed types separate from each other.
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Final Thoughts on Garden Seeds: Viability, Storing Properly, and Organizing
It’s VERY easy to become overwhelmed with all those seeds that mount up year after year. You can certainly go by the expiration date on the seed packet, but some seeds will last longer. This is where doing a quick germination test can come in handy.
Seed storage is most importantly about the conditions in which they’re stored. By reducing the amount of heat, light, moisture, and air they’re exposed to, you can significantly increase the amount of time they’ll last! And, if you want to get super organized, you can certainly do this, as well. But those storage conditions are definitely most important.
Now, I’m off to go separate out my seeds, get my garden planning sketches done on grid paper, and be ready for starting my seeds in their sprouting pots in just a couple of weeks!
Hey! And if you want a REALLY great book that I have just loved to help us figure out how much food to grow, I can’t recommend my friend, Melissa Norris’s book enough, The Family Garden Plan. It’s excellent, and it helped us to significantly reduce waste and ensure we grew the right amount of food for us last year. Score! I hope you’ll check it out, if you’re wanting to figure out how much to grow.
You might also enjoy these related articles:
10 Medicinal Plants for Your Healing Garden
How We Amended the Most Horrible Soil in the World
10 Tips for Vegetable Gardening Success for Beginners’
Gardener’s Deep Cleaning Rosemary-Mint and Pumice Hand Soap Recipe
And there are over 500 more articles on my website! I hope you’ll go explore!
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Hugs, Health, and Self-Reliance,
Heidi
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