How to Organize Your Garden Seed Collection

Tis the season for fresh garden dreams and pretty seed catalogs.

I ordered my seeds last night and just like clockwork I went from not thinking about the garden in months to wild-eyed excited for the coming year.

I know many of you are also gearing up to garden plan, so may I offer a simple suggestion?

Before you pull out your credit card and ordering the latest and greatest varieties, take a moment to inventory your seed stash.

Why Organizing Your Seeds Makes Sense:

• It’ll save you money. It’s deceptively easy to overbuy seeds… Your brain will convince you you NEED more pumpkin seeds… and you’ll be sorely disappointed when you later realize you had 3 full packs from last year.
• Seeds don’t last forever. I mean, they can, but the environment has to be just right. Unless you’re hyper-focused on your seed storage climate, they’ll degrade faster than you think. Thankfully, it’s not a huge deal as long as you rotate your inventory.
• It will increase your growing success. Old seeds aren’t as dependable as fresh ones. If your germination rates aren’t great, there’s a chance it due to the age of the seeds.

Are you convinced yet? I hope so. Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how to organize your seeds.

How to Organize Your Seeds

There are four main steps that I take when I’m sorting through my seeds and taking inventory of the ones that I already have. Here’s a closer look at the four steps that I take for organizing my seeds.

Step One: Categorize Your Seeds

You can categorize your seeds by:

• Season (early spring, late spring, fall, etc.)
• Plant Type (roots greens, brassicas, tomatoes, herbs)
• Variety (cherry tomatoes, paste tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, etc.)

Personally, I organize by plant type. My seed categories are:

• Alliums (onion & shallot seeds)
• Salad Greens (lettuce, arugula, spinach)
• Large Leafy Greens (collards, chard)
• Brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts)
• Bush beans
• Cucumbers
• Carrots
• Other Roots (beets, parsnips, radish)
• Winter Squash
• Summer Squash
• Winter Greens (mache, mizuna, sorrel, kale)
• Herbs
• Flowers
• Cover Crops

(I don’t keep hundreds of different varieties like some homesteaders. I’ve found what I like over the years and have realized that planting 16 types of tomatoes and 7 types of carrots is unnecessary for us. Therefore, I stick to our favorite short-season, workhorse varieties and call it good.)

Step Two: Organize Your Seeds

I personally use my Old-Fashioned on Purpose planner for this (yes, they’re still available!) since we created multiple pages for this very thing.

You could also use Google Sheets or Excel to create a simple spreadsheet to track your inventory.

If you’re making your own sheet, create columns for seed name, where you bought it, what variety it is, quantity, and how it performed for you.

I’ve tried many different options for storing seeds over the years (plastic boxes, shoe boxes, jars, envelopes), but finally settled on simple photo storage boxes (like the kind scrapbookers use). Plus, you can take the smaller boxes out to the garden when you need them instead of lugging the whole thing around.

(Wanna hear a sad story? Last year I took my big box out to the garden and accidentally left it out overnight in the path of the sprinkler. I didn’t realize it until weeks later when I pulled the box out of the basement and over half of my stash had germinated. ? Moral of the Story: don’t take all your seeds outside at once!)

Step Three: Check The Viability of Your Seeds

This isn’t necessary for all seeds, but if you have an older pack, it doesn’t hurt to do a quick germination check. (This is also a wise practice if you’re comparing seed companies and want to check germination rates— they’re not all created equal.)

This blog post will show you how to check if your seeds are still useable.

Step Four: Keep it Up!

The hardest part of this whole deal? Keeping up with the system. I mean, it’s not difficult, per say… but you must remember to keep your seed inventory updated throughout the season as you add/subtract seeds from your stash and most of all: take notes as the growing season progresses. The best gift you can give to your future gardening self is to write down what is/isn’t working.

Where I Get My Seeds:

True Leaf Market remains my go-to seed supplier. They check all the boxes for me:

• They have a huge selection of all categories- from veggies to herbs to flowers to cover crops.
• Their seeds are heirloom, open-pollinated, and GMO-free. This is huge as I want to be able to save seeds year after year.
• Their germination rates are spectacular
• Pricing is affordable and shipping is fast

You can shop True Leaf’s seeds HERE.

Knee-Deep in Seeds,

-Jill

More Seed Starting Tips & Resources:

• Why You Should Grow Heirloom Seeds
• Where to Buy Heirloom Seeds
• A Simple Seed Starting Guide
• Simple DIY Seed Starting System