How to Store Seeds

One of the most important make or break keys to good germination is seed freshness, there is nothing worse than patiently (impatiently) waiting for seeds that never germinate! The seasons wait for no one, and you really don't want to miss your seed sowing window waiting for seeds that will never germinate due to poor storage & freshness.

The two most important factors to storing seeds is keeping them dry and keeping them cool, but keeping them dry is the most important. Unfortunately most of New Zealand, most of the time is much too humid to store anywhere where they're exposed to the usual outside humidity fluctuations (especially during winter), so it is generally not advised to store seeds in your garden shed (unless you have very good airtight containers to protect them from the humidity).

My favourite method of storing all of my personal seeds is in heavy duty re-useable ziplock bags (like the ones we ship all our orders in), and if you have more seeds than sense (I’m a chronic seed hoarder), I then store all my seeds sorted to one ziplock bag per species or however you want to group them, inside of a sealed plastic container in my fridge – who needs space for food right!

Putting your seeds in ziplock bags, and then inside of a plastic container, you reduce the risk of them getting damp as things condensate pretty quickly as soon as you pull containers out of the fridge. If you are pulling things in and out, it can be a good idea to leave them out to dry off any condensation before putting back into the fridge again.

Stored this way I’ve always managed to make my seeds last an amazingly long time! I’m still sowing some seeds from 4 years ago and counting (they could probably go much longer but I've usually used them up by that point).

Chilling seeds in the fridge is particularly useful at increasing germination rates of a lot of hardy annuals, seeds like Ammi, Bupleurum, Orlaya, Choc Lace & Larkspurs all germinate much better after at least two weeks chilling prior to sowing.

Sweet Pea seeds can additionally be stored in your freezer (same air-tight type bag/container), where they'll last almost indefinitely!