I can only speak for vegetable seeds. Humidity is too high in a refrigerator. Mold becomes a problem with any long term storage. On the other hand, the freezer is great for long term storage. Most vegetables, but there are exceptions, are good for several years stored at room temps.

Dry and cool is the key to seed storing. Humidity and warmth will shorten a seed's viability. The refrigerator (away from the freezer) is a good place to store seed if you control humidity. Keep seed packets in a plastic storage bag or Mason jar with a tight-fitting lid--a gasketed lid. Here's how to keep the seed dry: wrap a couple of tablespoons of powdered milk in a few layers of facial tissue then put the milk inside the storage container with the seed packets (or you can use a packet of silica gel). Replace the powdered milk (which absorbs humidity--water) every 6 months. Most vegetable seed will remain viable for 3 years. Label the seed packet if a date is not on the packet. When you are ready to use the seed allow it to warm to room temperature. Otherwise, moisture in the air will condense on the seed and it will clump together. Any seed that goes in a freezer must be thoroughly dried--otherwise the moisture in the seed will expand and burst the seed cover.

Here is a link that might be useful: HarvestToTable.com

Thanks for the info, thanks very much!

I've been storing all my seeds in the regular part of the fridge for years. I keep them simply in either plastic bags or tuperware and most remain viable for years. Onions may be the only exception, but even some of these are a few years old and still germinate well enough. I dont have problems with humidity, but then this is a very dry area.

For controlling humidity you can get silica gel packs to put in with your seeds. I got a couple from ebay that are metal encased and have indicators which turn from blue to pink when they need to be "recharged". Just pop them in the oven at 250F for an hour and that dries them out and they're ready to go again. I keep my seeds in card-filing boxes placed inside a plastic trash bag to seal moisture out. The silica lasts a very long time under these conditions. Putting them in the fridge would help a great deal, but I don't have the room there so I just keep them in the coolest place I have available, which is the garden shed right now.

Everything in the freezer except garlic and potatoes. A ziploc bag will suffice. That is why freezers have those little shelves in the back of the door. I am still using cabbage seeds from 2000. I also save pole bean, radicchio, and parsnip seeds, but if you wait for a sunny stretch before picking mature heads, they will be ready for immediate freezing.

I have a multi step process with multiple seed locations for the type of seed. I know this is a really old post and there is a lot of seed info on storage but not a ton and I learned some of this from the national seed bank storage facilities. I like to dry my seeds for two days on paper plates. Use jewelry bags and don't put all of your seed in once location. Don't use any fancy drying agents, just use small 2x3/2x2 bags so you don't take up much space. larger seed quantities should be sold or using in the next couple of seasons can be stored in the fridge. I catagorize seeds in gallon ziplocks, like Winter Veg Garden, Trees, Fruit Trees, Herbs, Annuals, Perinneals. I store them inside of soft mesh insulated coolers in case the power goes out for a day or so, insane I know but It also keeps the temp stable when you open the freezer door. I store seeds in one refirdgerator door the same way and alternate those seeds regularly "things like Onion, tomatoe, Pepper, basil" so I don't have to dip into the freezer all the time to plant, then have a more long term storage in another refrigerator for things like fruit trees or something I may grow every couple of years but am not sure how long the seeds will last. All in all it doesn't take up much space and kills the old mason jar, manilia envelope, etc. All my stuff is pretty much heirloom so I want everything to remain viable. Also for newbies create an excel spreadsheet, I keep thinking man I need to order more basil until I did that about 5 years ago, now I have 20,000 basil seeds... On another tip, use ebbayy if your new and spend 50$ or so and find a good farmer near your area that has a mass variety of heirloom seed. I did that quite a few years ago for 30$ and got near 150 packets of heirloom seed.

I keep most of my short and mid term seeds in their packs that they came in. I seal the openings back up with masking tape if they don't reseal with the flaps. I do have one long term packet in the freezer that is not needed for some years ahead.

I would never store seeds in the fridge. It is humid and full of mold.

I store my seeds in a box in the cupboard, but I imagine the best way would be vacuum sealed in the freezer. They would probably store indefinitely that way.

The seeds that I use regularly get pretty well used up in a year or two so they are fine...often for 4 or 5 years or more when stored as I do with sealed packets at 70 to 74 °. The other less favored ones don't matter so much.

I routinely store all my seeds in a fridge and have for many years with excellent results. What works best can vary depending on your environment and the air temps you maintain if shelf stored.

A house with air conditioning during the hear of summer is quite different than one without AC and the humidity in my fridge is much less than in my house most of the time.

So try both and see which works best in your particular environment.

Dave

Why does it matter what the humidity is inside your fridge? The seeds should be in an airtight container.

Well, yes, that would seem to be the key to success storing in the fridge.

I store my seeds in the fridge in freezer bags with a desiccant pack or 2 in each bag. Beans get stored in canning jars.

The issue with humidity for refrigerator storage is when you take the seeds out. For most venues, the dew point is higher than the refrigerator temperature. So if you remove the seeds from the fridge unsealed, water will condense on them. That's a recipe for seed storage failure. You MUST MUST MUST keep seeds that are to be refrigerated or frozen in an airtight container (I keep mine in doubled ziploc bags), and DON'T open until the seeds have thoroughly warmed to room temperature. Throwing a dessicant bag in that airtight container is also smart.

I use large gallon size wide mouth jars with screw caps to store my seeds. As was mentioned above by others the silica gels are good to use to keep down humidity in the jars. I buy the silica and filI old cut off stocking hose with the silica gel, place it in the jars in a cool closet located on the north side of my home, never used the fridge or freezer as both seem to moist to me which cancels out the positive cold effect. Older seeds seem to germinate just fine.

If you open a package of cold seed to the open air, silica gel in that package won't keep them dry.

The water content of refrigerator air and freezer air is generally *much* lower than that of the air outside. In a freezer, pretty much all the water is stuck to the wall. Freezer air and refrigerator air can give the impression of being moist, because when you open them up, moist room air gets in and condenses into a fog. But that's air that came in to them from the outside.

Low temperatures add many years of useful lifetime to seeds. There are some seeds (I don't remember which) that really don't like to be frozen, though. I keep all of mine in the fridge.