Garden Seed Storage Organization Solution

This garden seed storage organization solution is guaranteed to help streamline your spring garden planning. Learn how to strategize, categorize, and organize those piles and piles of seed packets.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may make a small commission on purchases made through links on this blog at no extra cost to you.

I love seeds. People like me cannot pass a seed packet display at the store without stopping to peruse the vibrant pictures of exotic varieties of vegetables and flowers. I own more seeds than I can possibly use in a season. Despite this, I can’t help but buy more every year. It’s a problem, because now, even though the temperatures are freezing and the snow is deep, it is time to bust out the seed packets and start planning my spring garden garden.

That’s what I did recently and I realized that I had a roadblock to overcome. Without good seed organization, I had no idea what seeds I had and what seeds I needed. Therefore, I needed to address this soon since the seed companies are quickly selling out due to a huge uptick in gardening interest because of the COVID-19 pandemic and fears of food shortages. My seeds were a mess and my garden seed storage organization needed an overhaul.

If you are like anything like me, your seed stash looks a little like this…

An overstuffed ziploc bag is not ideal in the least. It’s hard to find anything I’m looking for and I don’t even know what I have. This is how people end up with twenty basil seed packets (ask me how I know this). I have tried the envelope system in the past, but they don’t stay in the envelopes very well if you don’t seal them. As a result, I ended up throwing all of the envelopes in a big box. Ultimately, I pulled them all out of the envelopes and shoved them into this bag. Enough is enough.

Step 1: Gather supplies

First I purchased a couple of these Photo Storage Cases. I love the fact that it has a handle to make it easier to carry. It is perfect for your garden seed storage organization solution. The entire case, including the inner photo boxes, are clear. Therefore, even without a label, it is easy to get an idea of what is in each photo box at a glance. You can get your own here.

Each case holds sixteen photo-sized boxes that are perfect for large and regular-sized seed packets. I was a little worried that some of my larger sized seed packets that I had wouldn’t fit, but they all did just fine despite my concern.

Also, I purchased these dot stickers for labeling. They don’t fit on the side of the photo boxes perfectly, but I liked the fact that you could color-code them (find some here). Or, if you want, you could forgo the dots altogether and just write directly on the side of the box, but I like to leave the option open to change the labels out if I want to.

Step 2: Divide and Categorize your seeds

For this step, you can categorize your seeds however you want. Some people categorize them by flower color or planting date. Whatever works for you along with how you personally plan out your garden each year will be best for your own garden seed storage organization solution.

I divided my seeds into four different categories and assigned each a color.

• Vegetable garden seeds (silver)
• Medicinal herb (or tea garden) seeds (gold)
• Culinary herb seeds (teal)
• Flowers (coral)

Once I finished that, I took the seeds in that category and divided them up further. For the vegetable garden seeds I divided them up by food type (pumpkins, melons, beans, etc.). In the case of flowers/herbs, I divided them up by annuals, perennials, and biennials. Then by those that might benefit from cold seed stratification.

Cold seed stratification needs to be done several weeks before planting time. In other words, setting those seeds apart will help with garden planning. As a result, you don’t have to dig through all of your containers to pull those out when the time comes to begin that process.

Dividing the flowers/herbs up further, by annuals, biennials, and perennials in this case, helps with garden planning as well. Knowing how often you will be planting something will help you know how often you need to order new seeds.

These are the categories I ended up with for each container:

Step 3: store your garden seed organization solution

Keep your seeds out of sunlight and away from dampness or warmth. You don’t want seeds sprouting prematurely or rotting. Be sure to go through your seeds regularly. Many seeds last quite some time, however, others will only last a season or two before they will no longer have reliable germination.

There you have it! The perfect garden seed storage organization solution for the seed-obsessed like me! With your garden seed storage solution, you are now ready to start planning your garden!

Shop this post

Photo Storage Container

Dot Stickers

Pin it for later!!