A good question, Elaine,

I also want to know how other pros organize YOUR seeds box. And where do you keep the box during the winter? Thanks!

in a 5-drawer cart on wheels. 2 drawers for flowers, 1 for veggies, 1 for grasses and herbs, and the last for shrubs/trees and mics. file alpha within each group in hopes of finding what I need easily.

Thanks a lot for your input, woodsidetrader, Where do you keep it during the winter. a warm part of your house or a cold part?

haha Lizzie, it is too much for a newbie like me to understand your Zinnias inside of Zinnias i.s.of Zinnias. Again, do you keep this bag in the cold or warm part of your house in the winter? Thanks a lot for your input.

Kay Young, this is my first year growing from seed. They're normally in my bedroom and will probably stay there. There's not really a winter here in southern Louisiana. Not like when I lived in Iowa (which was zone 5 like you). So cold. So very cold.

Lizzie

Well, Elaine I keep mine in individually labeled small plastic bags and keep them in a binder using trading card organizer pages. Then I have dividers seperating the sections, fruits, vegetables, and flowers/misc.. Then I put the whole binder in the freezer.

Hunter, can we see pics?

Sorry guys but I've been trying to upload pics for days and it wouldn't let me.

Like Hunter, In trading card sleeves in binders. The sleeves come in all sorts of configurations and sizes.

Heres another quick snap:

this one isn't particularly pretty (the little ziplocks in sleeves look less chaotic) but it's efficient and prevents spills!

When I'm heavy into collecting, binders just can't cut it - lots of seed heads and seeds. I'd used binders for storing embroidery designs for awhile and ended up with too hefty binders that were hard to maneuver through and too many of them. I put photos of my system in an idea book here - basically a file box with hanging files, alphabetized (so a folder for salvia and all salvia seed are within that hanging file). The file boxes just go on the floor of an entry closet - none of the coats that hang there are that long. http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/79348303/thumbs/my-seed-saving-and-organization 

Holy WOW, Maggie, that's incredible. And your envelopes are so charming.

I use seed bead cases and vials. There are 30 vials to one case.

Plus I use pill cases, in a pinch.

It's sooo much easier to see everything, move vials around easily to accommodate a new addition, all the variety names can be seen at the same time, and get an exact # of seeds I need out, without dealing with static, and getting seeds over the zip lock bump, without the rest falling out.

The vials double as my seed bank. I strive to fill the vials to their tops, which means, I keep hundreds of seeds to a variety, so I'll never be rare, hard to get, or expensive to get in the future, and is readily available, when I want to grow that variety again.

Also, when I grow the variety again, I keep the best of the best seeds, and give away the previous ones in that varieties vial, thereby, improving the strain at each grow out.

It's a great almost self managing system.

For bigger seeds, like bean or corn seeds, I just use bigger containers, that still come in a case, 9 per case I think.

This way, a huge amount of seeds, can be kept in a small area. 3 cases of 30 vials per case equals 90 varieties, yet only takes up a 5"x5"x 6" area.

I tried the seeds in the card keepers in the binder, but it only works for small seeds, or small collections in a wide binding, binder, otherwise, all the pages start getting, lumpy.

Plus, with my case collection, I don't need to flip through anything to find them, and I made a coding system, to know exactly where any given variety is, such as T1/3.

The code means T=tomato case 1=1st case 3=the 3rd vial So if I wanted Black Cherry tomato, with code T1/3, I'd know exactly which case to get out to find it, and where in the case it should be.

One could get more specific, if they wanted, and put row designations in the code, but I didn't bother.

For example T1R13 T=tomato case R=row 1=row one 3= vial 3

so the variety is in the.. 1st tomato case, row 1, 3rd vial

You can also use this system, as an inventory, to know how many seed varieties you have in all, as the vial #, can double as an inventory #.

If you have one full case of 30, and that's all you have, then your inventory of seeds is 30 types. 2 full cases, would by 60 types, 3 full cases would be 90 types, etc.

I count all my cases and vials, in a running inventory, such as 3 tomato cases (30 vials each)=90 tomato varieties, plus 2 vegetable large cases (9 containers per case)=18 vegetable varieties, added to the 90 tomato varieties, = 108 total varieties in the inventory. So that means the last vial in the 2nd vegetable case, would be #108

This may seem complicated, but once it's set up, in makes management a breeze.

All the varieties in the cases are alphabetized too, so if I need an A or B variety, I know it'll be in the 1st or 2nd case.

I have all the cases stacked in a rolling suitcase.

Some could put them in a fridge, if they have room, or on a bookcase shelf, tote bag, etc. Because they're all in cases, they're easy to handle wherever they are.

I put a rubber band around each case, so the lids will never open, if it's accidentally dropped. I use white dot labels, to write the variety names on each vial.

I also started color coding vials, with colored dots, a green dot, is a full vial, an orange dot, is the ones chosen for this years grow out. This helps me see with a glance, what needs growing out, and what has been grown out, and how many need grown out. The goal, is to turn all the labels green, and achieve full seed vials, for as many varieties as possible.

Another idea that works incredibly, is to use a "Large Photo and Craft Keeper"

This is a case, 14 15/16ths (L)x 12 1/16th (W) x 5" (H), that contains 16 4" x 6" smaller cases, that are absolutely perfect for putting standard commercial seed packs in.

I got one as a gift, and absolutely love it!

It is made by a company called Iris USA.

www.irisusainc.com I don't know where the givers got it, or how much it cost, but many seed packs fit in it. Each smaller case, could be a designated seed type, like just squash in this one, and just flower seeds in that one. The 4x6" cases can also hold many seed bead test tube like vials, if one wants to use those. The case of cases, is extremely versatile.

Even corn, and bean packs, will fit in the smaller cases, and not make anything bulgy or lumpy.

It does weigh a bit when full though.

One still has to rifle through the seed packs in the cases, unless one does a similar coding system, as above, but then it would still only tell you that your Green Salad Bowl lettuce seeds, were somewhere in the "Greens" case, and not a particular order, unless you numbered every seed pack, then made up a code sheet to be able to find a specific pack, like case 1 pack #2.

At any rate, it's great for simple organization, if one just wants all the seed packs neatly in one place.

Ignore the books, and look at the top left corner, and you can see some of the cases.

When I collect my seeds, they go onto paper plates on the bed in my spare room to dry. They then go into trading sized packets. I use 2x3 white block seed envelopes for most seeds but do use 2x4 glassine envelopes for tiny seeds.

My commercial seeds get filed into large Rubbermaid bins. I have 4x6 plastic envelopes with A through Z and then sub categories for things I have lots of different named ones of such as salvia, cosmos or agastache. These are all placed in there alphabetically. I have 1 for commercial seeds and my husband made me a box with two sections, 1 for collected and 1 for traded seeds. If I'm looking for a specific cosmos seed, I just pull the envelope for cosmos and viola! It works for me.

I'll post a photo from my phone by editing this post in a few minutes. :]

Good method! Thank you for sharing your idea!

Thank you, Wood Sprite Garden, for showing your seed bead vials. Curious how many of them do you have? I think it is easy access to grab seeds. Thanks,

Wow! Such great ideas! I used to do the sort everything into envelopes, zip baggies, sorted into big Baggie thing and just keep everything in the refrigerator. Usually I'd have 3-4 gallon size zip baggies of seeds. It's not a very efficient method for storing seeds. Would have to dig through the bags til I found what I needed. Always wrote the dates on packages of seeds as well as the seed kind, Latin and common names, hardiness, annual or perennial, etc. and any special info for germinating, such as dislikes transplant best to direct sow, need darkness to germinate, needs higher or lower temps to germinate, etc.

@vedabeeps are those Bulgarian tomatoes? I got spoiled on good Bulgarian tomatoes when I lived there while serving in the Peace Corps.

I keep mine in pill bottles,write the name with sharpie. I keep'em in a box in an unheated room in the house.