With the summer gardening season coming to an end, I found myself in a sea of unorganized seed packets that I needed to deal with. I'm already planning my next season (you can never start too early!) and I intend on doing a better job at starting plants from seed indoors. I plan to post on how to save seeds from already grown plants as well. It is a myth that seeds "expire" after a year and you need to buy new seeds each year. Seeds that are many years old can still germinate and grow new plants, but you may need to start 2 seeds per hole to increase your chances.
That said, I threw together a binder book to carry all my seeds, and I feel much more organized and prepared for next year already!
But first, here's a "before" shot of how I was keeping things...a plastic bag:
Supplies Needed:
A 3 ring binder, preferably at least 1.5 inches (seeds fill up more space than you think, and you may need a 2-3 inch binder if you have a very large garden). These are very easy to find at just about any retail store or online, doesn't need to be fancy.
Seed organizer pages to hold each seed packet. I used these because the pockets are very large, they seem durable, and they fit well with any 3 ring binder: Amazon.com: Seed Storage Organizer - Seed Organizer (3.5 x 5" Pockets - 50 Sheets - 8.5 x 11") - Garden Seed Organizer - Seed Packet Organizer - 4 Pocket Sheet Protectors for 3 Ring Binder : Office Products
Divider tabs for the binder so it's easy to find everything. Again, you can find these wherever you found the binder
Optionally, you can find individual seed packets to label and keep everything uniform. I'm not doing this, but these can be found on Amazon
Assembling:
Here's how I organized mine based on what I've grown and plan to keep growing in the years to come.
1) Place the tab dividers in the binder and label each one according to seeds you have/plan to get. Here's mine (it's set up like a Table of Contents and separated by numbers):
2) Place your seed organizer sheets behind each tab. I just did 4 sheets per tab since I don't have many seeds yet, then placed the rest at the back of the binder. Add your seed packets in the sheet pockets according with the tabs labeled. Make sure to label the year you got the seeds to keep track. This is my "Flowers" tab so far, featuring the seeds from the cosmos and marigolds I had this year:
3) Lastly, make sure to have a cute front design. Okay, you don't *need* this, but I feel better looking at this instead of a boring binder.
And that's it! Super simple to put together, and I will have so much fun going through this book during the next season.
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