The Ultimate DIY Seed Organizer!

National Seed Swap Day
happens on the 4th Saturday in January and I cannot think of a better way to celebrate than by creating “The Ultimate DIY Seed Organizer”.

Everyone that knows me knows that I am an avid seed swapper who just cannot resist a good seed swap.
I just love seeds.
I save them, swap them, buy them, plant them and I am always adding seeds to my collection.
For years I looked for a way to organize my personal seed stash so that it was easily accessible and didn’t take up too much room.

Confession, when I first started gardening I really had no system for storing my seeds.
It mainly consisted of me just placing seed packages in junk drawers, on counter tops, on top of the fridge or possibly (best case scenario) tucked in amongst some of the assorted gardening paraphernalia that I had accumulated.
It was a chaotic system at best.

Then I upgraded the storage of my seed stash to an old toolbox…and it was so much better.
At least my seeds were all in one place but as additional seed packages were added it turned out that it was not always so easy to find what I was looking for.
Not only that but it wasn’t too long before my seed stash outgrew the tool box and I needed to find something bigger.

So I looked around and decided to transform a large plastic file box into a storage system for what I was now calling my seed collection.
I organized all the seeds alphabetically by name and used binder clips to secure any open seed packets.
The Seed File Box invention fit my entire seed collection with room to spare and I found it amazingly easy to locate the seeds that I was looking for.
Furthermore the clips kept everything all tidy.
I finely felt like my seed collection was organized!
The only problem with the seed file box system was that sometimes I missed planting times.
Occasionally life would get in the way and I wasn’t always keeping track of when things should be planted.

This turned out to be particularly true during 2020.
The pandemic was literally a united chorus of “What day is it?” repeated by my spouse, myself and just about everyone that we knew.
However, while staying at home trying to avoid Covid I suddenly found myself with a lot of spare time on my hands.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what “The Ultimate DIY Seed Organizer” would look like and how it would function.

I thought that maybe my seed collection would be best organized into planting times.
Of course it would also need to have some extra sections for some of the speciality seed collections that I had lovingly curated for future adventures.
As well it would be nice to have a place to put all my seed swap buddies return addresses and a designated space to stash the current year’s empty seed packets for future reference.
In my mind “The Ultimate DIY Seed Organizer” would also have spaces for keeping extra seed labels, envelopes, permanent markers and binder clips to keep it all organized.
And of course it needed to be fully expandable in case my seed collection started expanding again as well.

Then inspiration happened!

Like many people during the 2020 pandemic I had became an Amazon shopper.
One day while looking for something completely different I came across an Over the Door Hanging Shoe Organiser.
A light bulb went off and “The Ultimate DIY Seed Organizer” became a reality.
Not only can it be fully customized for your specific seed collecting/planting activities, but it can help you to schedule planting times and it’s fully expandable as your collection grows.

This is great news if you are a seed hoarder…I mean collector.

Here’s a 6 minute video to explain how to make “The Ultimate DIY Seed Organizer” and how it all works…

NOTE – A cool, dry location with an even temperature is always best for storing seeds.

“The Ultimate DIY Seed Organizer” can be hung inside a closet, a north-facing room in your home or in a cool, dark basement or shed.
Really, anywhere that is cool, dark, dry and isn’t subject to temperature fluctuations will work best.
Personally, I keep mine hanging on the garage door going into my house as this is the place with the coolest temperature in my townhouse.
Plus, it makes it easy to tuck the seed acquisitions into the appropriate pockets on my way into the house so it stays organized.
It also prevents a certain non-gardening spouse from muttering things like “Do you really need more seeds?” even though he should really know better.
It’s a win/win situation!

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Happy Gardening!

Guerrilla Garden Adventures
Inspiring Garden Rebels everywhere to make the world a greener, happier and more creative place