Help requiring organising seeds, please.

[zazen999]

You obviously missed the "northerners" thread. Its been a big con all along they have nothing but gentle showers and lots of sunshine

Absolutely. Bloomin lovely up there it was, and in October too. Well, end of September. But hey.

[zazen999]

I have 3 big containers, one with peas, one with beans and one with squashes in it. I have another one, with all the toms bagged up, all the peppers and chillies bagged up, all the onions bagged up etc. And I have one bag which I take round with me which is stuff that can be sown 'at the moment' or 'all year round' so spinach features heavily in this bag. For the schools, I prepare a box for them each half term of what is going to be sown over the next 6 weeks, and we discuss what we are sowing, when and how [in, out, heat etc] so that they don't go and sow tomatoes in november and wonder why they died over the festive season.

[Arthur Pounder]

One of the kids bought me a couple of plastic pocketed jewellery tidys from Primark. They have a coat hanger top and about 16 plastic pockets on boths sides. I've got one in the shed here and one at the allotment. They were about £4ish each.

I'm quite untidy, so this is a super-neat way that i can see all my seeds at a glance.

[veggiechicken]

My thanks to you all for your brilliant suggestions. Lots of variations on a theme and some really good ideas to work on. I'll have a pick and mix and try to come up with something that works for me. Wish me luck!

[binley100]

Good luck then cos whatever system you decide it'll probably go to pot after a month or too (speaking from experience ) .....

[veggiechicken]

As long as my seeds go to pot I'm winning! Its when they stay in biscuits tins at the back of the cupboard that I've lost - like the ones I found a few days ago that prompted this cry for help!!

[chris]

I just have a big plastic box that all my seeds are in. I probably miss things but then again I blame the wife or something... she moves packets of seeds everywhere. I've found some in shoes, coat pockets, drawers, kitchen drawers, in the bathroom yada yada...

[Rocketron]

I just have a big plastic box that all my seeds are in. I probably miss things but then again I blame the wife or something... she moves packets of seeds everywhere. I've found some in shoes, coat pockets, drawers, kitchen drawers, in the bathroom yada yada...

Which is she ?

[BroadRipple]

wait, veggiechicken, reverse out of Ryman's...I have the perfect system.
Box A - wooden wine box given by friend, hinges have been burst by sheer bulk of seeds, now holding together, just, with mighty rubber band...this contains 1)current-ish seeds 2)seeds I feel guilty about not having planted last month 3)handfuls of escaped borlotti/radish/unknown seeds rattling around at the bottom.
Box B - be quiet there at the back - pointless metal 'SEEDS' box given by sister who clearly has no idea of the scale of my habit, containing a selection of my fat Franchi etc. bean and pea packets, all squashed down and therefore producing more of A)3) above
Box C - are you keeping up? - the traditional biscuit tin, formerly hosting a selection of Biscuits of Yesteryear and Biscuits No One Likes, now containing vast shameful overspill of both Boxes A and B, together with lost 'oh help about to be too late' seeds, + seeds for which the time is somehow NEVER right e.g. malabar spinach or 2 kinds of calaloo, + the odd plum stone I fondly imagined sowing when my patio magically turns into an orchard, hmm + the wooden coffee stirrers I nicked from service stations only to discover they were useless as seed labels, and this time a huge grain-store of stray seeds, all completely unguessable-at.
And so every now and then (i.e. whenever can think of a reason) I get out the whole lot, gaze lovingly upon them, jump up to check my fave seed websites and endlessly put new seeds in my shopping basket but fail to buy them, say to family DON'T LET ME ORDER MORE SEEDS and then in a pavlovian reaction IMMEDIATELY order more seeds, put them in Box A...and the whole scientifically precise system starts again.
Almost foolproof.
PM me if you need a spreadsheet.

[veggiechicken]

Hey Broad Ripple, Have you been peeking at my seed store? Yours sounds so familiar I think you must have. I actually think that half the fun of buying seeds is sorting them, matching them with identical packets bought in preceding years, stashing them away for a few months, them finding them again and repeating the process. Its a bit like playing Happy Families. Once in while, I sort out the really, really old seeds and try to throw them out, but I just can't. It seems criminal to throw away something that may have a life. So I gather them together in another box while I think about them. A few months later, out they come again, well past their correct sowing time, and again, I can't face throwing them away, so back they go for another year. Sometimes I mix up all the old packet contents and strew them on a bare patch of soil, just so that they get the feel of earth around them once in their lives - its kinder that way. If anything germinates its a bonus and a big surprise as it could turn into a flower or something edible. I do like surprises!!
While I'm in confessional mood, a quick look at the kitchen windowsill reveals 7 avocado stones, the contents of one of last C........s's pomegranates, tangerine pips, some of last year's desiccated runner beans and assorted flower heads. If it has the slightest chance of another life, I can't bear to throw it away. Oops, just found a shriveled lemon cucumber and a mango stone at the back of the worksurface.
Using your system, which box would I put these in?
Answers on a seed packet to.......

[BroadRipple]

hello VC, oho yes those go into a separate round wooden box, labelled with things like 'nice plum, france, 2001' and 'Bean'. Very useful, you can use them to replenish stocks of A)3) when they run out.
BTW yes I do that too re: strewing seeds around when they don't have a snowball's chance - gives the birds a bit of variety though I suppose.
Happy Families it is. So many packets of rocket...

[veggiechicken]

Thanks BR for your very reassuring advice. Now to find a round wooden box. There's must be one somewhere in this junk store I call my home. Would a wooden bread box, labelled "BREAD" but currently full of bulbs (light bulbs) be adequate. Or I could use the matching wooden tea, sugar and coffee containers, currently storing absolutely nothing but dust. Maybe one of those could house my lettuce collection....

[BroadRipple]

oh yes i have the storage containers too, very usefully containing store of air.
for my round box i used an old cheese box. ideal size, too small for any packets, just big enough for unlabelled seeds. and doesn't stay shut.
sounds like you need to buy a new box, not convinced yours are quite round enough.

[veggiechicken]

Went into the kitchen and there, staring at me, was an empty round container. Bought 2 for 1 recently - McV...'s mini cheddars and party twiglets. Helpfully, it gives you "Ideas for reusing your empty drum" so I kept them, just in case I should want to make a money box "Cash Saver" or "Grow a plant" in it. Well, you never know when you're going to run out of flower pots ... but that's another story.

[endymion]

Everybody seems much more organised than we are, with card indexes and so on.

Our seeds are in one large, deep, rectangular plastic box, sort of in 'when to plant' order front to back. When the packet's been opened, and the seeds been sown, they get put at the back. ...

... That's the idea anyhow, it seemed to work well enough, except for those packets of seeds that kept themselves at the front because they didn't get opened, because we'd run out of room so there was nowhere to plant them.

We've also got a chart with a list of seeds bought, when planted/germinated/pricked out/planted/first crop. We were hoping it would help us with planning for next year, but as this year's been so weird it might not be much use.