Organizing my seeds
Well, I finally did it. I finally organized my seeds. Well, actually, I’ve had them organized for several years, but over time my filing system has become inadequate and my seed box has been a jumbled mess for a couple years. So I needed to clean it up and make it work better before I could even place my seed order this year.
The system I’ve used has been a plastic bin with 4X5 index cards to divide the seeds. The problem is that
the dividers weren’t quite big enough–the didn’t fill the box from side to side, so there was a lot of slipping and seeds creeping around the dividers. The other big problem was, my seed use has changed over time. I plant far more squash and herbs than I did 10 years ago when I first created the storage box.
No problem, I said. I’ll just buy another set of dividers, this time I’ll by the 5X8 size. Well, it turns out a packet of 5X8 cards cost $13 at the local office supply store. Thirteen dollars for 25 cards?!?! Are you kidding me??? The frugal part of me just couldn’t bear it.
The low-cost solution
So I bought some nice stiff cardstock (thicker than average, thicker even than the original card dividers) and cut my own. I made the tab big enough that I could write the seed category without any cramped letters. I had a 20% off coupon (never buy anything not on sale!) so the card stock was only $4.50. That means these cost about one third what the store wanted.
And here’s the end result.
I’m pretty happy with this. Now I can easily see what seeds I have in each category, the dividers are wide enough that they keep everything neat and orderly and they are stiff enough that this should last me for years to come. I made several extra dividers. Now if I ever need to add or change any categories, it’s easy to do with these extra dividers.
Now I’m going to go place my spring order for seeds.
Need help starting your garden?
Be sure to check my three part series on starting a garden:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
And my booklet: Seed Starting 101.
