I think it's still good, since it's unopened. There is a fall-off, every year that the seed ages. And just work around it. If the fall off is ten percent a year, then 90% of the seed would germinate the first year, and then 80% the second year, and 70% the third year. There's no real point in planting five year old seed. But yours, being a year or two old, should be fine to use. I would not throw it away as useless.

Nope, Carolyn didn't keep her tomato seeds in film cannisters under her bed for 6 Years. LOL Rather, she initially kept her saved seeds in plastic screw cap vials in 100 place boxes with no special storage at all, just ambient temps. When she'd filled 5 of those boxes in the mid-90's she started saving her seeds just in regular so called invitation envelopes and still does. Switching to first person now. I find that with the ambient temps and humidity where I grow my tomatoes does not require special storage conditions. With seeds 5 yo I expect at least 50% germination and often much more. For seeds about 5-10 yo I'd double sow. For over about 10 yo there are a few tricks to use to try to wake them up. My best effort to date has been waking up 22 yo seed but the documented record is waking up 50 yo seed. Being an SSE member I never bought much seed and have built up a huge seed collection without doing that. But the question is about purchased seed in packets. Just seal them tightly when you're through sowing your seed, put the sealed packets in a sealed container in the fridge and that will be fine. For longer term storage you can freeze the seeds but before you do that you need to get the moisture level of the seeds down to about 5-8 % and you can do that with silica gel. Carolyn, who has never thrown out ONE saved seed since 1989 and darn good thing b'c some varieties disappear and some varieties due to improper seed saving morph into something that doesn't represent the variety as the original one. To date I've grown about 2500 different varieties but didn't save seed from all of them, but still, I've got one heck of a lot of saved seed out there in the back room. LOL

Image by: wintersown Seed Storage Boxes That's a tough question to answer because some plants have seeds that will remain viable years and years, and some plants have seed that will be viable for a much shorter time, perhaps just a year or two. Plant varieties are genetically different and Mother Nature controls this aspect. So, we have to look at the question differently, and maybe even ask it differently. Let's change the question to: What can I do to make my seeds last as long as they can? There's several ways to do this. We must first assure that the seeds are ripe when we collect them and have been allowed to dry in an open and well ventilated area, the moisture will slowly evaporate from them. For some simple and general information on harvesting and drying seeds please see the Seed Saving Forum FAQ called: "Saving your own seeds is easy to do!" How can I store my seeds after they've been dried? There are many favorite methods. The most important aspects of seed storage is to assure that they're consistantly dry and away from severe fluctuations of heat. I store my seeds in cardboard file boxes. I even have alpha-sort cards in them so I can organize the seeds alphabetically....you could also use shoe-boxes for the same purpose, they work great and it's an excellent way to recycle too! I keep four boxes for my seeds, a box each for: Annuals, Perennials, Vines, and Veggies and Trees and Bushes. I keep the boxes on a shelf in my house. The room has a comfortable temperature all year round, and the shelf is out of direct sun. Any sunlight streaming through the windows won't fall directly on the boxes and their contents won't heat inside from the warming sunshine. ============== Some of my seed-saving friends keep their seeds in recycled popcorn tins. These are very colorful and they have a tight fitting lid. After you eat the popcorn do wash the container and it's lid inside and out with hot soapy water. Rinse it well and dry it thoroughly. Any moisture left inside the can could foster rotting of the seeds, and it might cause the can to rust too ;-( They place their packets of seeds in zip bags, squeeze out as much air as they can, and zip them shut. Their seeds are organized bag by bag by their own preferences. The can goes out of direct light for storage. Place it in a closet, or under a table skirt, or up on a shelf....anywhere that it won't get fluctuating heat and won't be in direct sunshine streaming through a window. ===================== Another friend places his seeds in plastic boxes with tight fitting lids and stores them in the refrigerator. The refrigerator does not have fluctuating temperatures and the light only goes on when he's snacking or cooking ;-) ===================== Can I use something with my stored seeds to help absorb any moisture from the air that might linger in the container when I go into it for a pack of seeds? Yes you can! I use packets of silica gel and toss a few into each file-box of seeds I have. (They can go into baggies or tins or plastic boxes too.) Where do I get the silica packets? I save mine whenever I get a freebie pack. Sometimes when you buy shoes, or a wallet, or a handbag there's a pack of silica gel with the item to help absorb moisture. Another excellent freebie source is in vials of prescription drugs. Can I buy Silica Gel packets too? Yes you can! Ask for silica gel at luggage stores and shoe shops. Generally, wherever good leather products are sold you can find silica gel for sale too. =============== I hope this FAQ has been informative and that your seeds last for a very long time! Trudi

To give you an idea how long you can store seeds in the freezer, I just finished these up three years ago: Germination wasn't great, but it was OK. But when seeds get this old, I think the seedlings lose some vigor. About small seeds: I have some rare plant seeds that are nearly microscopic. They are still germinating well after 21 years. Just about every kind of seed keeps well in the freezer for me. There might be exceptions, but I don't think there are very many. But you've got to be careful not to freeze seeds that have high moisture content, and be very careful with seeds of tropicals. For storing individual types of seed, I use coin envelopes of various sizes. Then they go into airtight containers. I use canning jars, peanut butter jars, etc. I like the big peanut butter jars because they have a large diameter lid. That makes it easy to put big seed packets in. You can fit 30 or 40 big seed packets in one peanut butter jar. The number 28 on the seed packet shown above is my collection number. I keep track of all my seeds in a simple table in Microsoft Word. Collection number, variety name, date purchased or collected. If your table gets real long, you can use the "Find" feature in Word to search for a particular entry. The best freezer to use for seed storage is manual defrost. Self-defrost is OK, but it isn't going to give you as good storage life, because the temperature inside the freezer keeps going up and down. It's still a lot better than room temperature though. Germination will never be better than when they are fresh. If they were germinating 0% when you bought them, don't expect miracles when you take them out of the freezer. This post was edited by lilydude on Sun, Dec 28, 14 at 23:29