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seeds Seed Storage

someguy said:
I've done this for years and have had zero issues. I have seeds that germinate from fruit that has fallen on the ground from the previous season and it gets allot colder than my freezer here.
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This is very interesting.... I have destroyed seeds by freezing them without proper drying etc.
Can you give more details please?
 
someguy said:
I've done this for years and have had zero issues. I have seeds that germinate from fruit that has fallen on the ground from the previous season and it gets allot colder than my freezer here.
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I think you have just been lucky. There are still people who put coffee beans in their freezer as well as they think it preserves them better. Wrong! ;)
 
Proud Marine Dad said:
I think you have just been lucky. There are still people who put coffee beans in their freezer as well as they think it preserves them better. Wrong! ;)
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Maybe lucky..maybe not? I don't necessarily thinks it preserves them better it is just what I do and have always done. The OP asked "How does everyone store their seeds?" . This is how I store mine.
 
impending_bending said:
This is very interesting.... I have destroyed seeds by freezing them without proper drying etc.
Can you give more details please?
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Basically I use the method described in the book Seed to Seed by Suanne Ashworth. If you have the book you can start reading about it on page 29. The goal is to get the moisture less than 8%. Take the seeds that you want to dry and place them in a paper packet. Once you have all your seeds packaged this way weigh them. Then you need to weigh out the same amount of silica gel. You then place the seed packets and the silica gel into an air tight container. I use a half gallon mason jar with a screw on lid. You will then let this sit for seven or eight days. At this point your seeds will be dry. Pepper seeds will be in the 3% to 5% moisture range. If you take a seed and try to bend it and it breaks it is dry enough. Once you take the seed packets out of the silica gel jar then place them into small zip lock bags and store in another container until you freeze them.
 
Here is a link to the book . It is well worth the money they are asking.
http://www.amazon.com/Seed-Growing-Techniques-Vegetable-Gardeners/dp/1882424581/ref=la_B001K7Z88Q_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390670868&sr=1-1
 
2" x 4" zip lock jewelry bags filed in hardboard trays.
Trays homemade to stack two high inside 'baby wipe' box.
Box stored in bottom drawer of veggie crisper of refrig.
 
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I'm in the middle of re-organizing and cataloging my seeds which have been tending to get more and more dis-organized as time flies by. .
I kinda like the binder storage system, but someone  here at THP had their collection in pill vials and that is the route I've decided to take.
A one ounce vial is about 1" dia x 2" tall and will hold practically an "acres-worth" of pepper/tomato sized seeds.
Even for cukes and winter squash a vial will hold a few years worth for a  garden of my size.
If I were to get into corn and beans, I'd have to move more toward pint jars.
Organizing is my bane, so I'm routing sheets of Plex  or possible High Density Urethane (which ever I have good scrap of at the moment) about 14" x 18" to hold 80 of the numbered vials in an 8x10 array. I've got enough vials to fill 5 sheet arrays. (That should out last the rest of me.)
 
A seed lot is then assigned to a vial until it is used or proves non-viable and then a new lot is assigned to that vial.
The cap and vial will have a permanent number and the vial labeled with the particular seed lot's ID number and details and relabeled when the lot changes.
The database to store this info is coming along, but I'm pretty rusty in MS Access, so it has been slow at best.
 
The array sheets I'll store in some kind of plastic tote in a dry, cool, dark place.
 
I freeze my seeds. I dehydrate my food so I take the dried pepper seeds and shove them in bags then into a large ziplock bag and in the freezer they go. 
 
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