A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 seed storage ~ Keep!

HI, just curious as to how others store seeds. Any organizational methods or tips? Right now I store mine inside small envelopes inside a big envelope and it's not working so well!! Any suggestions would be great. Thanks!

I bought one of those plastic drawers that you can get at wallyworld (Wal-Mart). The drawer is 7 1/2 inches across and 4 1/2 inches high. I used 4 X 6 index cards as dividers with index tabs on top. I separate the seeds alphabetically based on the name I know them by. So it's not all botanical or all common. Within the dividers I have folders one for all the seeds that start with that letter of the alphabet and then others for just one type of seed because I have a variety of colors. Like celosia, or columbine, are both folders located within the C division. I hope this helps. I keep my seed drawer close to my computer because I keep my journal on here and also my germination table and pastically all my gardening information. So having the seeds close by saves me a bunch of walking.

i read somewhere to keep them in the fridge is that right?

I use a method like tk, except mine are in the individual 'recipe card' containers. and I store them in the fridge.

Storing seeds...here's what I do.
1) go to a dollar store and pick up one of those recipe card file things.
2) write on the tabs according to what type of seeds you want stored in each section.
3) Put your seeds into seed packet envelopes (you can find these all over the net).
4) File the seeds into the section you want.
5) add one of those silicone things to it. You know, the little things that say "do not eat". I forget there appropriate name, but they seal out oxygen and keep things "fresh" longer. They also help seal out moisture. This is why we want them, they help preserve our seeds.

What about putting them in ziploc bags in the freezer?
Or is the fridge better?
How long will they keep, until next spring?

On that subject - what about storing bulbs? I had some bulbs that I put in the old fridge in the garage and put them in the crisper drawer this winter and when I looked at them this spring - they were all mushy!!!

I make my own seed packets and put my seeds in those. I have a shoe box that I keep them.

Wow! What kind of journal do you have? Germination table??? I love to take notes, but how do you do this, if you don't mind me asking.

ND Farm Girl, I could be wrong here but isn't a crisper supposed to keep veggies fresh by increasing the humidity? Bulbs like to be cool and dry, so maybe there was too much moisture in the fridge? It's just a thought because I am no expert.

Once my seeds are dry, I store them in the seed packs, those I put into an empty velveeta box. My seed packs fit perfectly in there. I also store my empty seed packs in there, in alphabetical order.

While my seeds are drying, I store them in opened baby food jars or medicine bottles. Give them a shake every day or two to keep the air flowing while they dry completely. I use the top drawers of my rolltop desk to keep my supplies in cuz that keeps them all away from the kids.

Crisper - okay! Makes sense! I should just put in the basement then over winter right? Like my gladiolas I will have to dig up this fall?

About my system. I have two main folders on the computer. One is called plant profiles and I have an outline I use for each and every plant. It includes all the information you would find on a "davesgarden" fact sheet and then more besides. And If I knew then what I know now I'd have made it alittle different. Inside plant profiles are two sub-folders. One is named "plants I have" and one is named "plants I want". Both of them are broken down into two sub-folders called "outside plants" and "inside plants".

The other major folder is called garden information and this is the catch all. I have all my seed trading buddies addresses in it and all the trades I'm doing past, present, and future. There is a huge document that is last years garden diary and one that is getting even larger than that one that is this years garden diary. Then their are schedules of when to fertilize what so I don't forget and other calendar type documents for when to plant different things.

The germination table is getting to be pretty big. I only put things on it that I have or plan to have or thought I might get but decided against. Do I sound a little detail oriented? I am. I hope to post the germination table in the plant propagation section of the forum later in the year. It includes a few basic categories. The first category is when to sow the seeds, the second category is the soil temperature, the third category is whether the seeds need dark or light to germinate, and the forth category is how long they take to sprout. I may have the categories in the wrong order but those are the basic groups of information. But then there are things like chilling, soaking, nicking the seed coats and other things that pretain to certain plants and have to be included in order to make it useful.

Can't wait to see that table! The info you put up bout what seeds to soak, scratch, etc. really helped me a lot.

Instead of a book of addresses, I use an excel spreadsheet. I like the excel thing cuz I highlite the cells with different colours so I know, who sent out the seeds, whose seeds I've received, whose I need to send out, who I've thanks and notified them of receiving their seeds, etc. guess the only problem with that is always having to save a new version of it onto the floppy every time I add something on it. I had a spread sheet with trades a a few months ago and my harddrive died...stupid me, I forgo to save it onto a floppy and I lost everything. Good thing I still managed to fulfill my part of the trade (I waited until I received somthing and then would e-mail them to see what I was suposed to send in return, cost me to send a few extra packets that I forgot I sent earlier but in the end, everyone was happy)!

Is there a place where I can find out about scratching, soaking, etc. seeds? I've never grown anything from seed, but plan to, and this is all new to me.

nd, you can chekc out the plant propagation forum, tammy (tkhooper) has ver ygenerously listed a ton of seeds whihc need to be scratched, etc.