Organizing seeds using bead containers
14.4 years ago cheap, seed saving, seed storing
I first saw this idea on a garden mailing list at work but given most of you are not on that, I figured I should share with the rest of you. My problem was I had a big bag of seeds and it was always a pain to dif through and find the right seeds for the time of year I was planting.
My solution was to use Darice Bead Container
One printed I added the seeds and labels and grouped by planting time. After I was done I did have some thoughts about getting even more organized with a little color coding of specific dates…but guess I should take small steps
As you can see from a glance you can find your seeds and do a quick inventory of your available seeds. With this you can make easy incites like, “I really shouldn’t plant on collecting onion seeds this year” or “I almost forgot to plant fall spinach/lettuce”
Well off knock off a onion flower and plant some spinach and lettuce for this fall/winter.
Tags: seed
14.4 years ago
What an awesome organized idea!
14.4 years ago
I love this idea. Fairly inexpensive too. I currently save my collected and traded seeds in old medicine bottles. They are free and easier than zip lock bags or different sized paper packets (many home made by traders). This makes it much easier to actually “see” what you have.
One problem I have with your system though is for some seeds, I really like to keep the original seed packet. The picture of the mature plant tells me more about what I’m planting than say, which variety cucumber is Tendergreen and which is Straight Eight. Sometimes the planting information is also useful.
I may get one of these though. Even if just for the odds and ends and generic seeds. Getting just those in such _condensed_ order would be useful.
Thanks!
14.4 years ago
SerenDippity, one thought I had was to put some of the planting info on the back of the bottle using the same labeling technique. I chose to not do this since I have pretty much completely started to ignore the planting information on the seed packets anyway.
Many of the seeds I have in there are self collected and one “benefit” if these are their small size saves me from trying to collect 5 lbs of carrot seeds when I only need about 10-20 🙂
14.4 years ago
I can see a great benefit in this method. However, I, too, like to read the seed packets. If I used this method, I would just paperclip the seed packets together or stuff them all in one of the little compartments. After all, the seeds are visible and any information stored on the packets could be easily obtained from all the flattened seed packets.
14.4 years ago
I know what you mean about ignoring the planting info on seed packets. Most of that is totally useless to me here in Dallas. Our heat is brutal this time of year and our winters are inconsistent but rarely do we have more than a couple of freezing days in a row.
One thing that is useful though is the rare occasions where the packets say what size the plant will get and whether or not it is a vining type or a bush variety. I planted black eyed peas this summer that I thought were bush beans. They grew up my green bean supports to a height of 6 ft then twined all the way down to the ground again. The green beans died in the heat, the peas thrived.
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I’ve ordered a bead organizer though. Last night my shoe box (well, men’s boot box size 13) that holds about half my seeds fell off my desk and landed upside down. Chaos. No loose seeds, but the packets are no longer alphabetized, which was my only claim to organization.
Its time for a new system. Keeping the flattened seed packets is a great suggestion.
14.3 years ago
Love, love, LOVE this idea!! I must pick up some bead containers a.s.a.p. 🙂 Thanks for the inspiration!