Seed sorting

[Teabag]

So! How do you sort your seeds? Alphabetically? By sowing month? Veg, flowers, shrubs/trees and herbs seperate, then sorted by sowing month? New seeds/old seeds? Flowering month? Something totally different?

I'm looking at my seed box (old seed tray) and thinking "Oh poop!" Something needs to change.

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, couldn't see where else to put it

[Guest]

My veg and herbs are sorted into family (curcurbits - winter squash, curcurbits - courgettes etc. etc.) groups using empty video cases. My flowers are sorted by month in a Burgon and Ball seed tin.

[ESBkevin]

Mine are all in a plastic container (split into 4, new/opened and Flower/veg)and a spreadsheet has all the descriptions/sow dates as well as the major group of the 4 above, so I pull them out as I see fit.
I'm not usually very well organised so it works of me.

[sparrow100]

I sort by family group and keep a spreadsheet of the seed varieties, number remaining, origin & date acquired.
I might start hoiking out everything I want to sow and put them in a separate tin so I don't get confuddled part way through the season.

[Bill Door]

Ahhhhhhhhhhh! well I sort them according to how well they fit in my 2ft by 1ft by 1ft seed box. When I have opened them I find they fit better when I "ram" them back in. Isn't that the way that everybody does it?

I mean every year is just a "discovery" when you say "ohhh! I didn't know I had that" or "Bu***r I thought I had several packets of that, oh well a trip to the garden centre then".


Bill

[Teabag]

ESB kevin.. a spreadsheet does sound VERY organised!! And you Sparrow!

Bill Door, yep that's how mine are at the moment, rammed in.

[Jungle Jane]

My seeds are all in one big container this year (last year they were in three smaller containers) I sometimes think about organising them but it's no worry if they're all mixed. I go through them in January & write down what I'll be sowing for each month. So in March I'll gather the seeds for that month & put them in the kitchen by my seed sowing tray,once I've sowed them I peg the seed packets together & put them somewhere easy to find,then tick it off on my list as done. I don't put the seeds back in the big container because a few of them will be needed for a second/third sowing like lettuce,peas & carrots. I wonder if I'll ever get more organised with them,I like looking at every packet? I don't know if I'd cope if they were in groups I can see it taking longer if you have to take each group out of a file unless you had it all written down,but then you have to look at it to see what you've got,whereas if you look at the seed packets you get to see the pictures as well

[katkatkat]

I'm still new to growing and last season was a case of buy some things that can still be sown this late in the year. Those seed packs lived shoved in a plant pot in my box in the shared container.

I've now bought more seeds for my new plot and they're currently "stored" on my living room floor in bundles of which month they are to be sown and whether indoors or outdoors. I've yet to think where they'll go this evening when I tidy up...

I like the idea of a spreadsheet so I could then just store my seeds alphabetically and still know when I need to do what but I'd have no idea how to set one up.

[Elfeda]

I tried to put them into groups. so few separate bags in one big bag. one lot is into separate basket for growing this year. but they go often reshuffle back and forth as I learn about them. once sown, they are placed in saperate place..so for successon I will not choose the same or reshuffle them again.

all the oldish seed packs are in clearout sowing this year. all unwanted chillis and peppers are into pots now . if they germinate, put them into plot, mulch and leave it to their thing. and if any seeds left, will convert them into green manure/bush bean manure seeds next year by attending my local seedy sunday.

[Teabag]

I like looking at the packets (and pics!) too.. but I threw a lot of them away and decanted into mini tictac boxes with a sticky label with the name on so I'm having to google when to sow..big mistake, so much conflicting info! I know most of them are March/April but it's handy to know germination/growing times/temps!

I'm liking the idea of a spreadsheet too or even getting a diary just for sowing/growing, I can jot down if they were a success or not then and any handy notes

[sparrow100]

I have a sowing diary- I found it handy to note sowing date, germination time and rate with age of seed. Gives me an idea of seed viability in the remains of the packet.

[mothhawk]

I have two big biscuit tins, (lids squashed on and held with laggy bands) flowers in one, veg in the other, and that's purely because once they outgrew the first tin, I thought I may as well separate flowers and veg. Herbs tended to drift between both tins, so now they are in a separate ice cream tub.

That's as far as I go, sorting wise, because I like to get the tins out and just rummage for something to sow in the moment.

..I mean every year is just a "discovery" when you say "ohhh! I didn't know I had that" or "Bu***r I thought I had several packets of that, oh well a trip to the garden centre then".
Bill

...........

[shadow75]

Shoebox with month dividers, veg on the left and flowers on the right in alphabetical order.

I also have a simple spreadsheet with different tabs for veg & flowers.
The name is in column A, for veg the type such as brassica, legume etc.. is in column B then I have the months titled and put a 1 in so I know when to sow, as you can filter on a spreadsheet I can just view what I need to sow in each month if I want to.
I also have harvesting / flowering months so I can do quick crops or have something blooming for as many months possible. As this will be my first year on a full sized plot I wanted to organise as much as possible.

I also upload the spreadsheet to google docs so I can access it on my mobile, it stops me doubling up and going silly when I see an offer as I can check on the go what I already have.

Unfortunately I only did this when I had accumalated 24 types of tomato seed & 11 types of lettuce

Salad anyone...

[Teabag]

OOh I like that shoe box with month dividers idea! And the uploading to google docs, I'm always getting double

[fiveaday]

I'm liking the idea of a spreadsheet too or even getting a diary just for sowing/growing, I can jot down if they were a success or not then and any handy notes

The first bit of organising I've done was to create a Sowing spreadsheet; it's proved invaluable as I can see at a glance what has worked and what not not from a sowing point of view. As I'm a far better software engineer than gardener it was easy to add the conditional formatting so the colour coding is done automatically based on the information (in my case % germinated).



This was especially useful to me when comparing whether there was any difference / advantage between using recognised seed brands (T&M) vs cheap brands (Wilko) vs my own collected seed.

As for organising seed packets I use my software engineering skills here as well in that my favourite data storage method is FILO (First In Last Out), when translated to my seed collection that means the FIRST packet I throw INto the shoe box is usually the LAST one OUT

PM if you want a copy of the Excel file with the formatting to use as a starting point