Using Old Seed

Seeds purchased in seed packets from last year can normally be used, so don’t throw away old seeds! Save the seeds according to the directions in the ‘Saving Old Seeds’ section. If you have done this, there is a good chance that the seeds will germinate successfully. In years past, we would always buy new seeds every year. Now, however, we use the old seeds first to see if we can get them to germinate. More often than not, we are successful at this, and save some money as well.

How can you tell if a seed will germinate or not? The answer is you don’t, so you must simply put it into your plastic tray and try it. If you have a lot of seeds and aren’t sure about their viability, you can perform the paper towel test, which won’t be explained here as most home gardeners won’t ever use it. For small gardeners like us, we simply plant a few seeds from our stock of old seeds in plastic trays and see what happens. If none come up, then go out and purchase new seeds. If all or most of them come up, then it is a pretty good bet that the seeds are still okay and will germinate indoors in plastic trays or outdoors in the garden.