How do store your seed? I’m thinking not about how to preserve their viability, but how to keep things organized. I have so many different seeds I am, once again, reconsidering where and why I put my seed packets.
Alphabetically? By family? By the time of the season you tend to sow them? Other systems?
I have used a taxonomic ordering for a while. It means that a packet of seed only belongs one place. I’ve found that other ordering systems (like time of the year I want to sow) tends to create ambiguities (e.g. a crop I might want to sow several times) and then it could belong several places. I want to know that I can find a seed packet in one place only, so I don’t need to look several places. The benefit is I get to practice taxonomy in the process.
Here are my perennial seed (annual seed in boxes at work). In photo organizing boxes.
Then in different taxonomic categories (depending on the density of seed packets - this is one thing I’m less satisfied about with this system, the photo boxes are not that flexible in getting larger if I suddenly have a lot more seed in, say, Rumiceae).
I know some of you probably just put everything into a basket in a chaotic way like most gardeners. I’d like to hear from those who tend to get more organized and let them tell their stories - and show pictures!
I know @stephane_rave has some very well-organized seed storage at his work and I hoped this thread could be a good opportunity to show-case that.
I Store my Seeds fully dry in Plastic Bags according to Species, with Scientific Name & Variety or Relevant Info like Size, Taste/Flavor, Color, Year & where I got the seeds from, all of which is Labeled on a Small cut up Index Card I insert into each plastic bag. Every Seed is stored in a Metal box which keeps seeds Cool, Dark & Dry.
I also put Plastic Bags inside Plastic bags, to put all varieties of a single species in just 1 Plastic Bag. That way 30 small Plastic Bags of Tomato seeds becomes just 1. I also organized each type into it’s own plastic bag like Cherry-Grape, Large-Beefsteak, Roma-Plum, & everything else.
Every Seed is Organized by the Family it Belongs to. I have my Cool Season Legumes/Beans (Fava, Lentils, Peas, Vetech, ect) organize into 1 Metal Box & All my Warm Season + Tree Legumes Organized into another Metal Box. I have so many Squash seeds that 1 Metal Box only Hold Kabocha Squashes, another box for all the other C. maxima, and 2 More boxes for C. pepo and C. moschata with C. ficifolia. I also have a Metal Box dedicated to Peppers, a Metal Box Dedicated to Melons (Cucumis melo) and another dedicated to all the other Cucurbitacea Crops like Watermelons, Kiwano, Wintermelon, Luffa, Edible Bottle Gourd, ect.
Oh and of course, every seed is entered into my Phone & organized by Plant Family & Scientific Name, so I can know everything I have without having to open each metal box.
I’ll take Pictures Later or make a Dedicated video On YouTube showing my entire seed collection is your interested. If not, I won’t waste my time.
I use wax-paper zip bags labeled with date and name and any other important info.
The bags are stored in water-tight ammo cans. I have an ammo can for each crop (beans, corn, squash, melons, etc.)
I also throw a silica gel pack into each.
I promise pictures. I am not so organized.
I keep my seeds in paper bags, folded in a way that I can open and close them. I mark species, variety, date and place of collection. For example: Wild garlic, Dignity gardens, 08-24.
Then, I store in one big box all the seeds that have to be seeded in spring, and the ones that can be seeded in Automn in the other. (These are our only growing seasons, by the way).
Since I am trying a radish grex, I have grouped all the radish bags together.
I know it’s not ideal, but seeds don’t seem to care as long as they are not too old.
Starting from patterns, to details
First of all, I have two separate big boxes for seeds. These are big Curver plastic containers. One is for bulk seeds, second is for small samples of everything.
Bulk seeds are a few, I put them in container in a number of different packagings - jars, bags, cans, it depends. Each has a clear description what’s inside.
My seed library is in the second Curver box. It contains 12 identical smaller plastic boxes, and each box contains seeds of species, that are being sown pretty much in the same time - so one box contains radish and onion seeds, while another contains tomato and pepper seeds, etc. There is a separate box for beans, due to size of seeds, as well as for squashes.
In each box, if it contains more than one species (like radish and onions), each species is in a large ziploc bag (one for radish, one for onion). Within each bag, there are separate small or tiny ziploc bags, one for each variety.
In some cases, I put together seeds of varieties tha have similar properties, for instance, I separate indeterminate, determinate, dwarf and micro dwarf tomatoes, since I grow each of them differently. Same for beans - dwarf / pole / fava, etc.
What is the most important to me is to have all seeds sown in the same time pretty much together. During sowing season, I take usually one box from my seed vault and I sow just these. Nex week - either more of the same box, or next one.
I store my seeds in Metal Boxes, each species/type inside it’s own plastic bag (Sometimes Plastic bags inside plastic bags). Every species/varietiy corresponds to the list on my phone, so I know every seed I have without having to physically open up each box. Every seed is organized by plant family.
This has been 5 years of seed collecting (Via grocery stores, wild foraging, ect). I’ve learned so much so much seed saving, so I won’t have to later. Now I’m just waiting for land to garden these seeds on.
Meanwhile I’m trading seeds to acquire more types of germalasm for breeding! I constantly daydream (& night dream too!) about Gardening & Plant breeding. All I do is learn about gardening/foraging because that’s all I can do without land!
Smart! I may do the same when I actually have land to properly start growing plants. Do you also separate tomato seeds by cultivar group (Like roma/paste vs Cherry/grape)?
For melons and watermelons I got 3 populations: early / normal / storage, and at this 3rd year stage I sort each by taste excellent / good / medium. Example there with my “early” (left) and normal precocity (right), keeper seeds being still in the fruits right now. Will taste and sort them in a month from now.
Side note, but that influences both drying and storing: I will forget about the “medium taste” seeds from next year on and about the “good” from 2 years from now on, by then focusing only on the excellent. Of course if I didn’t brought in loads of new genetics in my patches this year I would have got rid of the “medium” already. (“Medium” meanings not bad but that’s it, insipid/bland being not kept)
Here is the transcription of this overall idea regarding taste and relocation of those taste qualities in later years: how, on top of selection on early vigor (100% direct sown, 95% culling), I intend to select on taste. 3 years scheme post-grex stage towards “excellence stage”, then maintenance of these qualities… Next year : year 4 (“AN4”). We’ll see… Intended for 50 to 100 square meter of each population minimum with 3or4 plants per square meter. I.e. crop of 100 to 200 kilos minimum per type
Fantastic Seed Collection & Organization! I saw plenty of seed types I’d love to grow & Trade for!
How well do the seeds last? How often do you rotate them? What’s the oldest seeds you have in there & do you think they will germinate? Does plastic store them better than metal?
Fantastic! Do you wait till you start noticing a rot point or softening to each your melons? In other words, do you push the stability to their limits, like how some squash can last 2 years (Or not possible for melons except in Wintermelon (Benincasa hispida))?
The Medium, Good & Excellent Taste Strategy is very excellent! Good inspiration, I may do something similar by just not planting all my seeds, always saving back ups (Even if it’s like 10 seeds or so of each type), in a metal box or like a freezer for Long-Term Storage. That way If I need to go back it’s there. The maintenance stage, if done for lots of generations & generations, does it eventually become a heirloom?
80% excellent to 20% good is how I like it! Of course you have plans to add on new traits you like from new varieties, right?
I don’t know. Can’t give you precision on that, but it depends on species for sure.
For this population pre-selected on storage capacity (once again: on catalogue!), I wait for 2 months post harvest, and taste them all, either with friends on one day, or day after day on my own. The seeds of those rotening before or then are dried separately and go back to my “normal earliness” population, in my “medium taste” bag. Then those who stored well constitute my next generation, sorted by taste, dried separately by taste, sown by taste, a way to possibily accelerate a bit towards “excellence”. Maybe.
Here they are right now -we have eaten about ten in Antibes already-:
I love your system Thomas and it partly inspired me to make this thread in the first place. I like your balance between systematic overview and bulk containers - both simple and flexible. Each category can expand and shrink organically without wasting space or challenging the overarching system. I like how you can easily transport your seed storage system also - like you did in Antibes (by the way, I regret not taking the time to go through your seed!). I look for broad and low height boxes now and will make similar “title cards” like you do.
at the associative premises, we have a storage of our reproduced seeds in a metal cabinet (old plan de plan d’architectes cabinet) all put inside the cold room,.
We store at very low temperature and can put the coins in thermal shock when we return large quantities of seeds ( wheat, corn, vegetables…) to kill any egg or predator larva that could have entered.
in cartons the novelties to be classified, stored…in the corresponding drawers.
then a file that can be consulted by all members allows us to prepare our orders quietly at home in the warm especially.
Then we come to pick up our order from time to time.
This is after a morning sorting out after Antibes.
More stuff is coming in.
I want it in pots or in a plastic bin like Thomas has when I grow up.
And yes I love yoghurt with homemade marmalade!
Intended for 50 to 100 square meter of each population minimum with 3or4 plants per square meter. I.e. crop of 100 to 200 kilos minimum per type
