Seed organizing

[eyegrotom]

I have been thinking about how to organize my seeds for some time.

So tell me how you organize your seeds.

How you would do it if you had a chance to do it over.

Do you do it by color
Do you do it by size
You alphabetize them

[GoDawgs]

My seeds that are currently in use live in a metal box. They are in quart ziplock bags and sorted by family groups, I guess. All the brassicas in one bag, tomato/peppers/eggplant in one, all the cucurbits in another, etc.

The seeds not currently in use (retired, "might" do again some day, extras of current seed, etc) are in the freezer. They are in paper coin envelopes which are sorted alphabetically ("Bean, Blue Lake Bush") inside a ziplock bag and those bags are in two plastic containers with a snap on lid.

I've kept my seeds like this for a long time with just a few tweaks along the way. Field peas eventually broke away from the bean bag and into their own bag. Then the bean bag eventually got split into bush and pole bags. This year the tomatoes will say goodbye to the peppers and move into their own place. That's what this site will do to tomato collections.

[MissS]

My seeds go into binders with baseball card pages. They are alphabetized and I make a name card for each of them and I use a colored marker to show if it is red, brown, purple etc.. On the back of the card I write it's description. I also then make a spreadsheet that lists them alphabetically. I write their names in the color of the tomato, list my source and year grown, and the tomato's description with room for my own notes. If find it easy to look on my spreadsheet to find those in the color I want and then look in the row for leaf type, another for shape/type and then days to maturity.

[Tormahto]

Seed organization???

I have a choice between a maelstrom and a tornado filing system. I choose the down and in over the up and out.

[Shule]

I have three foam coolers that I use to store most of my seeds.

1. The seeds I saved myself go in one (and that cooler is pretty much full; so, I'll need to get another one, or else give away zillions of melon seeds); inside that cooler, they're grouped into brown paper lunch bags that are labeled (by species and/or year), describing the species of seeds that is inside them.
2. The seeds I purchased are in another cooler; they're in gallon ziplock bags grouped by species, and some are in sandwich bags inside of those gallon ziplock bags; the seeds in the tomato bag are grouped primarily by the vendor I purchased them at, and maybe the cucurbits and others are, too (but I don't remember).
3. The other foam cooler has seeds from SASE offers, trades and stuff; they're also in brown paper bags. I used to have the ones Tormato gave me in 2016 in a separate bag, but now they're all kind of mixed. Seeds from certain offers are sometimes in certain sandwich bags in one or more brown paper bags in that cooler. Oh, I also have my oldest seeds that I saved myself in this cooler (from 2014 and 2015), in one or more separate brown paper bags (separate from the seeds from trades).

Another part of my organization is that I try to keep digital records of what I have, and where/when I got it, although I need to update my records, currently.

My seeds that I saved this year are still on my seed-drying table, and I still need to put them away. Most of them are tomato and watermelon seeds, this year.

I don't order things by color or size. They're just grouped as described above, and random beyond that.

Nope. I probably wouldn't do much differently, unless I had more resources, more coolers, larger coolers, or something.

Maybe I'd get a cooler that could fit file folders easily, and label the compartments of each file folder, and put seeds in each compartment. I don't know if I'd like that more or not, yet, though.

[GoDawgs]

I forgot about the spreadsheets. I have one that has tabs for each year. Each tab contains the list of everything being planted that year and includes among a lot of other info (quantity planted, seed germ., transplant dates, first harvest etc) seed names, date obtained or collected, and seed source. Then some of those columns are on a separate spreadsheet listing the contents of all seed in the freezer.

[AZGardener]

I store mine in photo boxes bought from the craft store. I made dividers to separate them. I also have a spread sheet to keep track of my seed inventory.
Here is the one I use, I customized it to fit my needs:
https://www.growyourheirlooms.com/free- ... readsheet/

[ddsack]

I store seeds in small zip locks, coin envelopes or original commercial seed envelopes, and combine all years of the same variety in a large white envelope, listing the years, sources and comments. These are filed alphabetically in large plastic under-the-bed type shallow storage bins that can be stacked.









Envelopes needed for a current season, are pulled out and kept in a separate shoebox, at the end of the season, new saved seeds with comments are added, a master list updated with the new date of seeds, and the envelope is refiled in the storage box.

[peebee]

Thru the years my seed stash just grew & grew to the point where organizing became a nightmare. Do I alphabetize by species, by name? Do I separate flowers from vegetables? Do I keep must-grows in their own section?
So a while ago I downsized. Threw out seeds that were way too old, that didn't germinate. Gave lots away. Varieties I didn't like were weeded out. I still ended up with lots but divided all into 2 small plastic bins: 1 was for cool season plants, the other for summer. So now all I have to do is look under my bed for the appropriate box when I'm ready to sow.
It's all about making it easy & enjoyable, so try to find whatever works for you

[goodloe]

I have 1 shoe box labeled "Tomato Seeds" and 1 labeled "Pepper Seeds",besides old & cranky, those are all I grow...
That's the extent of my "organizing"...

[bjbebs]

I pretty much use Tormato's, "up over and around method". No semblance of order at all. When something is needed, it's dump and search. That way I can see most all of it and refresh my mind.

I have to admit, you neat freaks make me jealous.

[eyegrotom]

[mention]bjbebs[/mention] a
LOL I am not even close to a Neat freak.

I just want to know if I have a certain seed if someone ask me, with out dumping all my seeds on the floor to look for one.

[pepperhead212]

Nothing OCD here - just keep the seeds in a large shoebox, with the envelopes in small ziplocs, labeled for peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, herbs, and many other categories, with a few labeled for trading, which I don't use any longer, or save excesses of. I also put the seeds for the present year in a large ziploc - peppers and tomatoes in their own small ziplocs, the rest just loose.

Here's a tip you may find useful - to close those paper seed envelopes, after opening, I use painter's tape - the blue or green tapes that pull off easily, without tearing the envelopes. Most other tapes just tear the envelopes, or at least take a layer of the paper with them. The painter's tape works fine, and can be re-used over and over.

[eyegrotom]

[mention]pepperhead212[/mention]
I have been using the blue painters tape on my coin envelopes for years.

[Tormahto]

@bjbebs a
LOL I am not even close to a Neat freak.

I just want to know if I have a certain seed if someone ask me, with out dumping all my seeds on the floor to look for one.

I don't need to organize my collection to know if I have a certain seed if someone asks. With likely about 99% accuracy I can tell them yes (based upon my having that seed in the past 5 years, or so), I can tell them no (based upon never hearing of the variety, or knowing that I gave my last seeds away in the past few years), or the 1% I don't know because I haven't had that request in about a decade. I don't like digging through the piles for the 1%.

[agee]

I also use painter's tape to reseal seed coin envelopes or seed packs. My tape is blue, and that is the most widely available color, but in hindsight I wish I would have gotten a lighter color because I also use the tape for labeling.

[AKgardener]

I have all my tomatoes is small containers and the vegetables seeds in a plastic container nothing special

[ddsack]

Some may wonder why I save my seeds in so many separate batches. I don't bag my blossoms, so there is always a small possibility of a cross on any one fruit. At times I will scrape the seeds off my cutting board after eating a really good tomato and clean them with Oxiclean for a fast process. By keeping seeds from different fruit or ferments separate, I always have alternate batches available, in case the next year's plants end up being an incorrect type. It does happen.

[worth1]

Emagin the odd spare nuts and bolts bucket.

[WoodSprite]

Are you asking about just tomato seeds? Or all veggie garden seeds?

Back when I use to trade a lot of seeds and grow a lot more tomato plants each year than I do now, I made a spreadsheet (a table in Word) and had one dedicated to just tomatoes with the following columns: Grew (the year I grew it), Seeds (approx. quantity of seeds), Variety Name, Fruit Size, Days To Maturity, Color, Type (indet, det., reg leaved, potato leaved), Comments (flavor descriptions, heirloom/open-pollinated/hybrid, country of origin, and other information), Source (year I obtained the seeds, who from, what state or country they were from, and their email address). The list was alphabetized by variety name. I kept the actual seeds in their seed packets or transferred them to coin envelopes and kept them alphabetized in an up-cycled food container. When organizing a trade or deciding what to grow that year, I looked at the list to see what was available.

Now that I've moved, I don't grow as many tomato plants each year and purposely don't have as many tomato varieties on hand (too tempting to grow them all, LOL!) but I'm growing a larger variety of veggies & herbs now. I keep all of my current veggie (including tomato) seeds in one table with the columns labeled Veggie (type & variety, i.e. Tomato - Matina), Days to Maturity, Source (year and abbreviation for where I bought them since I haven't been trading since I moved), Comments (details about the veggie/variety & seed starting if it's a new to me veggie). I keep the actual seeds in their original envelops and keep them in zip-top baggies separated by when I need to start the seeds so each bag may contain more than one type of crop. When I'm planning my garden, I look at the table of information and only use the seed packets when I'm planting them, then they go back into the baggies so I can find them again when I want them.