Germination Test Shows Home-Saved Seeds Last Longer Than Expected

Medium to large seeds, such as onion, melon or cucumber, show surprisingly high germination rates even after several years. Small seeds, like tomato or broccoli, also prove resilient, though lettuce loses its vitality first.

There's a common belief that seeds, especially small ones, have a rather short shelf life. That after two or three years they're basically done for. Well, I've been running some tests at home, the kind you do with whatever you have on hand, and the results are far more optimistic than one might expect. The idea was to settle the question of how long seeds actually last, especially non-commercial ones, those home-saved seeds we store with care.

## How resilient garden seeds really are

Most of the seeds I tested were from **2021** and **2022**, some even home-saved from earlier years. Keep in mind that these don't go through the quality controls of seeds sold at garden centres, and yet the surprise was huge. Storage was the usual setup: in a dark, dry place, although in summer temperatures could climb above **30 degrees** and the rest of the year they ranged between **10** and **20**.

## Varieties that surprise

What I've seen is that size seems to be a key factor. Larger seeds, like **melon** or **cucumber**, germinated without any problems, with very high percentages, even four years after harvest. The **onion** seeds had some trouble with mould, but many still managed to sprout. This blows apart the idea that small seeds are the most delicate.

## Small but mighty (and others not so much)

On the other hand, the smaller seeds, like **arugula**, **tomato** or **broccoli**, remained stable for at least **5 years**. **Lettuce**, however, seems to be the exception that proves the rule. After four years, its vitality plummets, with germination rates dropping to zero. So if you grow lettuce in your garden, it's best to use it up quickly.