I have seeds of all kinds that are ranging from a year to more than 10 years old or more. The longer they are sitting around, the less they will germinate. For coriander seeds, a single year of time will yield about 95%, for 2 years, about 75%, and 4 years, about 40 to 50%. After that its a toss up. Because I use coriander to make sausages with, the seeds are used in that instead. The ones I use for the herb (cilantro)are the slow bolting type and are a bit longer lasting for the leaves. Coriander is the seed name, while cilantro is the herb leaf for that plant.

Recently I was browsing threads about seed viability on the Seed Saving and Winter sowing forums. Someone posted a link with a good table about the viability of various seeds (under ideal storage). According to this table, a few seeds are short-lived, lasting 1 or 2 years, but most last 3-5 years or longer. These figures might even be conservative, as some posters claimed they have used seeds that are 10 years or older. The germination rate may go down, but apparently some still germinate. I store my seeds in Ziploc bags in one of the produce drawers in the Fridge, which seems to maintain viability for a long time. See the link below. Here is a link that might be useful: Longevity of seeds in Ideal storage

Panoply, your vine is Hyacinth Bean Vine. I've grown it for over 20 years. It is truly a beautiful vine. You can read all about it by putting it in to a search engine. Search on the vine and see if any of the pods are dried out and papery. Pull them off the vine and take the little black beans with a white strip out of the pod. Put the beans in a dry paper bag,(never in plastic, or glass) or they will mold and ruin.. You can also save the pods that are not dry by cutting off long pieces with lots of pods and hanging them upside down in your kitchen. You will have many beans in the spring for a new vine. Grow full sun, wait till the ground is warm,trellis. :) Arum

This year my tomatoes have suffered from wilt. I don't know which wilt for sure -- it's the one with dark brown patches on the lower leaves surrounded by yellow, which eventually causes the leaves to die. **** Peter, you/ve asked about wilt then said that the leaves have dark brown spots. What you're describing is a foliage infection and wilting is not a symptom of those kinds of infections. Hybrids have no disease resistance/tolerance to foliage infections and nor do most OP varieties. Matt's Wild Cherry is what's called a cerasiforme and so I can see it might not come down with those kinds of infections. If plants with foliage infections have shed the bacteria and/or fungi to the soil in a preceding year then splashback infection can occur and mulching can help but not prevent reinfection. Sterilizing the stakes isn't going to help b/c if you've had infected plants in there before the soil already has those pathogens there. And new infections can occur by windborne or rainborne means and you can't do anything about that other than to do what most others do and that's to protect the plants from when you first set them out. Many folks use Ortho Garden Disease Control which is Daconil. Daconil is synthetic but can be applied up to the day of harvest and has a lower toxicity than does Rotenone, which is approved organic by every organic certifying agency that I know of. Daconil is an anti-fungal so you need to know that the foliage infection you have is fungal in nature. If you go to the Tomato Pest and Disease Forum ,link at the top of this first page, look for Problem Solver #2 and then for links to disease sites. The two most common fungal foliage pathogens are Early Blight ( A. solani) and Septoria Leaf Spot. If the foliage infection is bacterial in nature, usually either Bacterial Speck or Bacterial Spot, then you need to consider using a copper containing product such as Kocide or similar. You can also go to Google, select IMAGES and enter the disease to find pictures. Copper containing products have some activity against fungal pathogens but they aren't as effective as Daconil. But you really need to know if you're dealing with a bacterial or fungal foliage pathogen and sometimes both can be present at the same time. Windclimber has suggested using compost tea but from all the feedback I've seen over the last decade or so they aren't known to be very effective. The basis for their use is to compete with the foliage pathogens on the leaf surface, presumably blocking the specific attachment sites where the pathogens bind by competition. If applied to the soil they have no activity in blocking those leaf sites. What Daconil does is to bind to those specific sites and is effective in preventing the fungal folaige pathogens from attaching. Turning over the soil, not just rototilling it, where you grow your tomatoes also helps by burying the pathogens that are on the surface of the soil after bing shed. Hope that helps. Carolyn