What method do you use for organizing all your seeds?

You could also check ur local hardware stores for a box like that. They usually sell em for nuts and bolts.

I confess, I am more like Honeybee or Stephanie--I keep my seeds in the packet, all jumbled together in a plastic shoebox. When I want to plant something, I dig through the box, make a stack of "plant now" and one for "back into the box". I don't have more than 40-50 varieties of seeds, so that works reasonably well.

David

Yeah, I really don't have that many seeds as of yet either, I'm just thinking ahead LOL!

I did see in our local Harbor Freight sales flyer that they have the containers that gymgirl uses on sale for just under $4 this week... if I can get hubby to take me down there, I might pick up a couple LOL!

Well, we finally were able to check out our new Hobby Lobby store! OH-MY-GOSH! It's HUGE! They bought the buildings that Giant Eagle and one other store used to use, took out the wall between the two stores, and created one huge store! We were in there for probably an hour or so and I'd be surprised if we seen half of what they have!

On the plus side... I picked up the containers and zip baggies that Gymgirl has, and will be sorting out my seeds soon. We also got a fun gardening activity for the kids! Its a kit where you can grow Tropical Mimosa (sensitive plant) seeds. Figured, maybe since I killed the ones I tried growing last year (oops! LOL!) this might be a little easier for us LOL! Hobby Lobby had the containers on sale much cheaper than Harbor Freight did, even with their "coupon flyer" lol.

Oooooh dear, Hobby Lobby has created a monster! < =D
(can I go shopping with you please!?) =) heeheeheee

Absolutely! Lol prolly be more fun than shopping with my hubby LOL!

Seriously tho, the sheer size of that place blew me away!

When DH and I had a date last weekend, we hit up a Hobby Lobby in Fredericksburg VA, and WOW it was fabulous!!!!!!!! Even DH, who is NOT "into" gardening or anything outdoorsy or "old-and-antique y", and DEFINITELY not anything country-ish, was just FLOORED at the wonderful planting displays and options they had there!! The containers and stands and wracks.. OH MY!! He would have loved to hang around the aisles and oggle longer, but the crowds started filling up the aisles, and we are NOT "crowd-friendly" people, LOL!! When it comes time for "real" shopping though, we know where we're going! =)

My such a wealth of opinions! I do find it confusing. LOL. If you store in the refrigerator isn't that moist? Anyway, I have done that in the past. This year tried a new tip; I saved my seeds this year in a large plastic container, but in a dark spot not in the refrigerator.

As far as organizing, I have gotten a number of "free" 10" by 6" plastic bags [ from those gold buyers..] So when I look through my seeds in January-[well really February this year! ] I put them into these bags labeled by starting dates. for example, all the 8-10 weeks seeds go in a bag, 6-8 week etc. then I can co-ordinate with planting dates calendars. So far this has worked for the past 2 years pretty well.

There might be some moisture in the refrigerator, but I'd imagine that if you put the packages that the seeds come in from the store, inside a zip lock baggie and stick it in the fridge, the baggie should help keep out most moisture. Thats how I had been storing mine, except, I had also started saving those little bags of moisture capture crystal things (you can find in some food packages and medicines, etc) and stuck those in the ziplock bag with my seeds, to help reduce any moisture getting to the seeds.

I had also just put some seeds in a cool dark location as well, including garlic bulbs I didn't get a chance to plant out last year. While, I cant say how doing that has affected germination rate as of yet (did this year cuz life got too busy and I forgot to store things properly! So they sat in my basement inside my gardening bag until about January, when I happened to remember them lol!). I will say though, DON'T do that with garlic bulbs... atleast I wont be ever again LOL! I had to toss out all my garlic bulbs that I had because they got soft and moldy :(

The BEST thing you can do with your garlic is put it into the soil in the fall. Even if you have to come up with a pot or 2 of container mix; planting them in the Fall is the absolute BEST thing you can do with your garlic. =)

Yeah, I had meant to do that last fall, but I actually forgot. End of summer/beginning of fall is incredibly busy time for us. Last fall, i needed to do a couple IEP meetings with my kid's schools, squeeze in all the necessary dr/dentist/eye/endocrinology/lab test appointments for my kids (endocrinology and lab tests more for my son with diabetes, but my daughter had to have some lab work and an EEG done last fall also for some issues she is having). Its just a lot to try to squeeze in in just a few short months, especially considering some of those appointments were out of town! So, the garlic got put on the back burner, so to speak lol.

I'm hoping this year that I'll be able to remember to plant them... once I buy some more! LOL

Oh.. and here I thought you had a good reason to be a slacker. LOL LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =) My goodness, with stuff like that going on, have your neighbors grow your garlic for you!! Heeeheeheeheee

LOL! Yep, this mama stays quite busy... surprised I have the time to enjoy even a minute of the nice, warm weather between spring and fall LOL! I gotta feeling this year is going to be even crazier, what with all that posted above, plus some other things I'm expecting to "pop up", especially after this past friday's audiology appointment we had for my daughter and are waiting for the results back on, plus next friday's developmental/behavioral pediatrician appointment she has (which is another 2 hour drive, one way, to get to)... and get the results back of some evaluations we are having done with THAT dr.!

OY! That's all I can say LOL!

LOL! And my family wonders why I can never find the time to go visit them for a few days..... LOL!

Good Heavens to Betsy woman, how do you find time to run to the little girls' room!!?!? (let alone 'organize your seeds'... nudging back to the forum's original title) ;)

LOL While the kids are sleeping?! I failed to mention, often times, during the week days, I get approximately 4 hours of sleep after dinner till about 11:30pm, then am up all night checking my boy's blood sugars throughout the night. So yeah, got loads of time to catch up on laundry, sort seeds, and all that fun stuff either while they are sleeping, or the few hours 3 days a week that they are BOTH in school LOL!

Today, though, my daughter has a 1 hr delay from head start, so I'll be starting all my "chores" and sorting all my seeds, etc an hour later than usual lol!

More snow for you then? The Weather Channel says we're supposed to be getting snow/rain this morning, changing over to rain later in the day, but we shall see. Woke to completely clear skies this morning (4:20), but now the sky is completely cloudy...
Guess I'll have to wear some layers while taking DH's truck to get the oil changed this morning. =/

Meanwhile, I counted a whopping 11 total sprouts in my Veronica jugs yesterday, Yippeee!! However, I also see I'll need to re-hair my pot of Anemone bulbs, as some nasty evil squirrel has been digging in there, grrrrrrr!

Yep, we got about 1-2 inches laying already, since last night. And, for as long as I know of this morning, it has been lightly snowing, but now the flakes are getting bigger. We're supposed to warm up here in a day or two though, and head back into the 50s. Seems like this year, its just snowing and sticking enough to stay around for a couple days before it warms up again and melts it all all over again, just to turn right back around and get rain/snow/ice mixtures again, enough to make the roads slick. OY!

I haven't really started anything as of yet, other than my herbs. Soon though, as soon as I use up the few celery stalks left in the fridge, I'll be tackling that experiment again! LOL!

We actually got snow this morning, 'til about 2:30 or so, then the sun came out and everything that was sitting around melted. =)

Hmmm, you use up all the celery first before cutting the 'butt' off? I cut the 'butt' end off first thing and plant it, then all the stalks are already separated in the fridge for use. =)

Wal-Mart has the tiny little zip locks for 99c/100.

Speedy, I do, with the celery, cuz for whatever reason, it seems to last longer in the fridge doing it that way.

I heard about this cool trick for keeping celery in the fridge longer, so I've been doing it for a while now and IT WORKS! After you cut the 'butt' end off, just wrap the stalks in foil to store them. Sounds silly, and I don't know the science of why it works, but it does. Keeps it all fresh and crispy for a couple of weeks! =)
(my hat goes off to my buddy Richard C in Washington for that tip!) ^_^

My sister in law puts hers in water in the fridge. But my celery, keeping the butt on and in the fridge, lasts a good 3-4 weeks. Even keeping it in the bag it comes in lol. Maybe next time I get 2 stalks of celery, I'll cut the butt off one and wrap it in foil, like u suggest... and store the other the way I normally do and see which lasts longer...or about the same length :-)

Oh yes, please do and let me know. I've been doing that foil thing for about a year now, (previously I would cut the end off for storage so it would fit in the crisper drawer better), and it would be nice to know if something works better. Thank you! =)

In their original packet, in an accordian file with tabs for you to insert your own labels. Buy the heaviest you can find. I also have reclaimed dessicant packets stashed randomly throughout. I started out sorting by plant families, but have now sorted for planting season/similar germination times. For instance, all leafy veggies are either "Cool Greens" (lettuces, spinach, kale, chard) or "Warm Greens" (Malabar spinach, Strawberry spinach, Amaranth, Lamb's Quarters.) Same with "Cool Beans" (English peas, Sugar Snaps) and "Warm Beans" (Cowpeas, limas, pole-type green beans.) "Root" are all together (carrots, beets, radishes) because of their planting period/germination time. All of my cucurbits are together, because I don't do any long-season ones (no pumpkins or Hubbards.) All herbs together. Flowers are also "Cool" (sweet peas, Nigella) or "Warm" (Cosmos, Moonflower, Nasturtium.) All Solanacea are together, because I rarely start any from seed. I hope that helps!

Lol. I have 3 'file cabinets'. The first two are tupperware containers, the last is an envelope box. The store bought or small plastic packets are filed alphabetically (by what I call them- 'scallions' not 'bunching onions', peppers are all grouped under P not by name, etc.). The ones I collect from my garden are in the envelope box because I store them in envelopes. I shove a few silica packets in the containers too to make sure nothing gets too humid.

Heh heh, I currently have some green pepper seeds "stored" on a paper towel on my dining room table! < =D LOL!!!!!

I dried out honeydew and cantalope seeds last year from some store bought produce to see if i could get to germinate this yr lol

Speedie, we have that, too. LOL I also have 4 shriveled and dried up jalapenos on my kitchen counter I'm saving for seeds.

Just a quick update on the frozen seed experiment. The Beefsteaks and Brandywine germinated fine in the garden bed growing to about 2 1/2" in the last 2 weeks. Also have some of the cukes and zucchini doing well. We had a eggplant in the one bed that didn't do well last year and it looks like it survived the winter and is about 12" tall already. I guess that would be nice not to have to plant something different every year.

Oh cool Kevin, very glad to hear that your seeds did so well! It's gotta be nice when a veggie over-winters better than expected; I hope this year it really produces for you.

... OH, this reminds me, I have GOT to get those chaste tree seeds out of my freezer!!! I did an experiment where I immediately sowed some of the chaste tree seeds after I brought 'em home (the next day), then I stored the rest in the freezer (it's been 3 weeks now I think), to see if they would work after a freeze. I'll need to get those out of there post-haste and sow a pot or two, to compare the difference. =)

Sweet! Glad they worked out for ya kev!!

I finally decided to organize my seeds.

One box with current seeds to be sown this year.

One box of "old seeds" that may or may not be sown as an experiment.

One box of my own saved seeds from last year.

Phew - I feel better already ^_^

I threw away some seeds that I had no clue what they were. They were just sitting on a plate. Oh well.

I've got all my seeds in herb jars and on a shelf in alphabetical order. I've got one marked "Dunno" 'cause I don't remember what they are, heh heh. I think I'll sow those today and hopefully have a pleasant surprise later this season. =)

Honeybee, "Phew - I feel better already". LOL!!!!!!!!

I keep mine in mason jars. i keep them in their original packets and organize the jars by plant family. ie. brassicas, alliums etc. its important to keep them dry and in a relatively dark place to make sure they stay viable as long as possible.

another good method that i use is glassine envelopes that stamp collector companies use to keep most off of mint stamps. as a collector of stamps, i use the left over glassine envelopes to store my left over seeds. the make alot of different size envelopes and some come with a strip on the envelope to label what you are storing. i use a standard index card file box to store my envelopes. you can order by the bulk from harris stamp company.

Altoids tins also make good storage containers!

...and they're minty fresh!

If you have access to baby food jars, they would work, too.

my grandfather did that. had them all over the house, drove my grandmother nuts!