Does Seeds expire?
Does Seeds expire?
Germination rate falls with age, and it falls at wildly different speeds depending on the species.
Onion and parsnip: 1 year. Beans and peas: 3 years. Tomato and cucumber: 5-10 years
A seed is a living thing in suspended animation, and what expires is the proportion that will still wake up. The variation between species is enormous and not intuitive: parsnip and onion seed is close to useless after a year, while tomato and cucumber seed regularly germinates after a decade. The date on a packet is a legal statement about the germination rate at the time of testing, not a use-by. Old seed can simply be sown more thickly, which is why gardeners keep it.
How to store it
- Cool, dark and dry. A sealed jar in the fridge roughly doubles most species' useful life.
- Humidity matters more than temperature.
How to tell it has gone
- Test ten seeds on damp kitchen paper for a week. The count that sprouts is your germination rate.
"Use by" and "best before" are legally different. Use-by is a safety date and should be respected; best-before is about quality, and food is usually fine well past it. Where the two diverge matters, the page above says which applies.
Common questions
- Does Seeds expire?
- Germination rate falls with age, and it falls at wildly different speeds depending on the species.
- How long does Seeds last?
- Onion and parsnip: 1 year. Beans and peas: 3 years. Tomato and cucumber: 5-10 years
Related pages
- Does Eggs expire? Eggs stay usable for weeks past the date on the box, and the float test tells you about age rather than safety.
- Does Medicines expire? Most solid medicines keep much of their potency for years past the date — but a handful genuinely must not be used late.
- Does Petrol and diesel expire? Petrol goes stale within months, and ethanol blends go faster because they absorb water.
- Does Batteries expire? They self-discharge on the shelf, at very different rates by chemistry — and alkalines leak when flat.
- Does Wine expire? The great majority of wine is meant to be drunk within a year or two. Very little of it improves.
- Does Chocolate expire? It keeps far longer than the date. The white bloom on old chocolate is fat or sugar, not mould.
- Does Household bleach expire? It loses strength within months and eventually becomes salt water. This surprises most people.
- Does Paint expire? Unopened water-based paint keeps a few years; opened tins depend entirely on how well they were sealed.
- Does Honey expire? Does not expire
- Does Milk expire? Has a real expiry date
- Does Sunscreen expire? Unsafe or ineffective after the date
- Does Salt expire? Does not expire
- Does Frozen food expire? Indefinite if stored properly
- Does Canned food expire? Indefinite if stored properly
Sources
- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place