It really depends on what they are. Some seeds are only viable for a few weeks, while others can last for tens or even hundreds of years. If they are for perennials, they will probably be good until next year. Annuals tend not to last as long, but if you keep them in the fridge, you should still get enough germinating to make it worth keeping them. Herbs and veggies can be all over the map when it comes to longevity. Onion and allium relatives don't keep that well, lettuce and many other greens are also short lived, but tomatoes, eggplants and peppers can last for many years. In any event, keep them and give them a try. I found some lettuce seeds once that were at least six years old, and I had a germination rate of at least 50%. I've also had one year old tomato seeds fail. You never know :-) Next year I would start at least some of the seeds in a wet coffee filter (placed in a ziplock baggie). Check daily, and transfer any germinating seeds to your seed trays. This way you can see what the germination rate is like, and if it is a complete failure, you will know early on and have time to buy some new seeds. BP

Well, I will start another thread sime time soon and include pictures of the original 2 hibiscus once they got full sized about 2 years after planting, and what they look like now. The 3 that I am growing now are the same color flowers as the original plants, even though these came from seeds off of the old plants and were pollinated undoubtedly as a cross between the reds and pink flowers. They arent quite blooming yet, and that makes them at least 2-3 weeks later than many hardy varieties, but they make up for it with LOTS of huge blooms and a long bloom time. At this point they are on their 3rd season since I replanted them as volunteers 2 years ago. They were popping up all over different beds for at least 2 seasons, maybe 3. I didnt actually notice volunteers popping up until about 2 seasons after the original hibiscus plants were removed(because they were way too large and spread out much more than just about any hibiscus plants I had previously seen). Those original plants didnt survive the transplant due to too many roots being severed, because they grew outwards many feet in all directions, and it wasnt prudent to try and dig up a 5' to 8' root ball just to get the outward growing roots in one piece! I have cut back several stems on the largest plant, and yet there are still at least 12 or more very large, thick, long stems left, that are growing outwards in all directions. I had to practically remove an entire side just to prevent them from crushing the 5' Zinnias behind them. Thats another aspect to this story: The Burpee zinnia seeds I buy(Giant flower mix) also grow much larger than advertised, and this year they are getting even taller than last year, as I saw a couple flowers above my head by at least 8" just 3 days ago, and the rest are at least 4.5 to 5 feet tall now, even though they were 2 feet tall a month ago with hardly any significant lateral branches. They are advertised to grow to 30-36"....... These plants are in a front yard that gets at least 11-12 hours of direct sun per day right now, so shade isnt the cause of tall growth, besides, they are also very thick stemmed, which wouldnt be the case if there was a lack of sun.

If you are talking about tomato seeds (many discussions here about this the search will pull up) cool dry storage is easily good for 5-10 years. Even longer has been posted by many in the past up to and including 25 years. The Seed Saving forum has a good FAQ about how to best store seeds. Personally I have fridge stored seeds (in paper) that are still highly viable past 10 years - used some '94 and '96 dated ones this year. Many professional seed savers prefer paper envelopes over plastic since plastic can trap moisture inside. Dave

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