Sorting Seeds

Winter is a great time to organize our seed collection every year

Most of us are in hibernation mode this time of year because, in most areas, it’s too cold to do anything outside, or just warm enough to go outside, but not warm enough to do anything meaningful in our yards or landscapes.

For those of us who grow vegetables, our seed collection can become insanely large and hard to manage. Come spring, we end up buying more seeds only to later find we didn’t need a particular variety because we still had some “in stock.”

I’ve found that taking an hour or so every year to go through all of my seeds, organize them, and dispose of old seeds is the ticket to more successful gardening come spring.

As much as I hate plastic, I’ve found that zip-lock bags work very well for seed organization. I use a quart size bag for each variety, and then put all those quart sized bags in a large zip-lock bag and keep it stored in a dark, cool, and dry (humidity fluctuations wreak havoc on seeds) location all year. I sort seeds by variety and label the zip-lock bag so I can easily find the seeds I’m looking for. I know there are dozens of ways of organizing seed collections, but this is what works for me. For instance, I have one bag labelled “Large Root Vegetables” which includes seeds like Turnip, Beets, etc. Another bag may say “Tomatoes” and have packets of every variety of Tomato I grow. I’m always careful to look at dates on the seed packets. Most seeds, if stored correctly, remain viable for many years, but I use a rule of thumb: If commercial (seeds I haven’t saved myself) seeds are 5 or more years old… they get tossed out. If the seed is a variety I really like (and am unable to save my own seeds for whatever reason), I have a wish list on one of my favorite seed producer websites where I just put that variety on my list until it’s time to purchase in the spring.

Ultimately, we should all strive to grow heirloom, open pollinated varieties of vegetables and flowers so we can save our own seeds and never have to purchase them. Most commercial seeds are overpriced and we never know for sure (regardless of what it says on the packet) if they are fresh.

Spending an hour organizing our vegetable and flower seeds every winter can take a lot of stress out of gardening come spring because we will feel confident that seeds we are planting are still fresh. Fresh seeds have a higher germination rate and that’s what most of us are striving for. There’s nothing more disappointing than spending time planting and not seeing any sprouts after 2 or 3 weeks, requiring us to make a mad rush to the store in hopes we’ll be able to find the seeds we need and get them planted in time. Especially for those of us who have extremely short growing seasons.