Seasons Keeper

For the last couple of years now, I have been working on a better way to store and organize my seeds. Last year I attempted a storage notebook system, and I wrote about it here: http://backtourbannature.blogspot.com/2012/01/seed-organization.html.
That system worked for about a month. It was hard to get the seed packets back in the card holders, and as time went on, the open seed packets deteriorated and leaked seeds.
I decided that this cannot stand. I had seeds rolling around all over the place. I spent a week collecting the seed packets from all their hidey holes and did a massive accounting of what I had.
I am organized by nature, and tools like MS Excel only feed my desperate need to file and categorize. I listed all of the seeds that I had in an Excel spreadsheet and found that I had purchased several duplicates because I didn’t know what I had. Then I looked at that list and decided I would log all of the cultivation information from the seed packets so that I could do away with saving those packets forever. Now I was really getting into it. I added columns for seed source, ID#, cost, date of planting, potential harvest date, season, garden notes, etc. Now I really had something. I could use the spreadsheet to plan each seasons of planting, log when I planted, and schedule on my calendar when to harvest. The days of keeping the seed packets for their information was over!

But if I am not keeping the paper seed packets, how am I storing the seeds? I knew I needed something that was compact, easy to use, and stored the seeds in airtight, freezer-proof containers. I did some research with manufacturers and came up with a storage vial organizer system.

I’ve taken my invention around to seed swaps and showed it to some fellow gardeners. I’ve received a lot of positive feedback about the system, and I had several people ask me to make them one as well. So I’ve decided to Kickstart my invention so that I can offer it to as many people as want it.
Seasons Keeper on Kickstarter
If you aren’t familiar with Kickstarter, it is a website where entrepreneurs can raise money through crowd sourcing to start their projects. Projects only get funded if they raise all of their goal amount. I’ve posted my project on their website and have listed nine backer levels with some great rewards.
If you have ever wished for a better way to keep your seeds, I encourage you to visit my Kickstarter and back my product. You can get a Seasons Keeper organizer, storage vials, and customizable electronic catalog for a pledge of just $30. And you will receive your reward by the end of May (in time for spring planting).

Seed Organization

I can’t be the only one with this problem – Storing and organizing left over seed. I’ve tried several different methods over the last year, none of which were terribly successful. Initially, I taped the seed packets closed and put them in an old school-supplies box. This was adequate until I needed back in those seed packets. Every time I had to cut the tape to re-open the seed packets, the packet itself degraded a little more. Also, there was no organization to the box. When I needed a specific packet, I had to sort through everything in the box to find it.

Next I put the different varieties of seed packets in their own labeled baggies. I had a plastic sandwich bag for all my different tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, etc. This helped with the organization, but the seed leaked out of the seed packets and soon I had bags of miscellaneous tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers.
So here’s my latest attempt:

Seed book

I tri-folded the seed packets and slid them into clear plastic business card holder sheets. Each sheet holds 10 seed packets. I can actually read the seed packets, and so far, I don’t think that any seed has been able to escape the packets. The image above is my test run. I am going to take it on a trip to share with some gardening friends. If the seeds all stay put, I will put my other (20-30) seed packets in the protector sheets and organize it so that each sheet is dedicated to a plant type (i.e.: berries, carrots, peppers, tomatoes, greens, etc.).I also put white ruled paper behind each sheet and plan to catalog planting /germination notes for each seed I plant in 2012. Hopefully this seed catalog/garden diary will be the answer to my seed storage and organization prayers.

If anyone out there has a good method that works for them, I would love to hear about it. I’ll even post it here (with your permission) to share with others.