---
title: "Does Seeds expire? Degrades in quality"
description: "Germination rate falls with age, and it falls at wildly different speeds depending on the species. What actually changes over time, whether it matters, and how to st"
url: https://atoneplace.net/does-it-expire/seeds/
site: "At One Place"
---

# 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

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## Sources

- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place (/about/)