It’s time for a serious seed inventory.
Here’s the deal…the last few years have been full of gathering as many seeds as possible from ever location possible. No joke. If they were on sale or looked pretty or at a garage sale or seed savers exchange HooRah, I was going to bring them home. This was very exciting for my Newbie Urban Farming Self, but it was not very practical. It was actually quite short sighted.
Why was it short sighted?
Well, upon doing a full on seed inventory, I have found that we have:
- Seeds that are very “expired” (2006 anyone? Geez…)
- Seeds that really don’t do well in our climate
- Seeds for items we don’t even eat (but maybe wanted to try somewhere along the way)
- Seeds that have been crossed with other seeds that don’t grow true
- A whole lot of needless frustration
So, now what?
The chore of going through all of our seeds started a couple of weekends ago. Then, honestly, I got sad about all of it because I just love seeds (I am, undeniably, a Seed Nerd/Hoarder). So, I pushed aside the project.
Which bring us to now. It’s almost mid-February and I have just completed the project. I went through every last seed packet and checked dates. Anything older than 2010 went into a pile. What remained was inventoried and added to this years Grow List. I then went through the expired seeds and decided which of those we really do want to continue growing (or try for the first or second time).
What does our 2014 Seed Inventory look like?
- Green means we have enough seed to get us through this year
- Yellow means we have some but should probably purchase more to get us through the year
- Red means we’re completely out of seed, have grown it in the past and want to grow it again this year
- Lavender means it is a tree or a perennial, is growing happily and deserves to be tracked via my corresponding Harvest Tracking Spreadsheet
So, what’s on the 2014 Grow List?
After all of the inventorying, I compared the list to my seed catalogs and placed our first seed order of the year and will purchase the rest locally. The total will now be added to our Urban Farm Economics spreadsheet and we will wait patiently for our seeds to arrive.
In case you doubt me…Yes, we will grow everything listed above on our itty bitty 1/8 acre urban farm. There will companion planting and bio-intensive beds and trellising and vines growing up ropes and over portals and seeds tucked into every available inch of soil. Which means it is actually past time for me to start pushing seeds into soil under our grow lights for transplanting later. But that’s another post 🙂
How do you approach your Seed Inventory Process? Is it something you do (thoroughly) annually? Are you a seed hoarder like me? Wanna start a support group? Or join a new Facebook group a few of us bloggers have started? Just ask to join and one of us Admins will approve you ASAP!
xoxo,
M
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I inventory and keep a spreadsheet that tells me the name of the seed, the year, the supplier, the cost, etc. Take a peek at http://tinyurl.com/mn8q6up
I thought you’d disappeared from the face of the earth, but somehow you got accidentally removed from my blog roll! I just found a link your latest post on another blog, so I’m now playing catch up!
Annie’s Granny recently posted…February 18, 2014 – Preliminary Garden Plans
Annie, Thank you so much for finding me again! It’s been a couple of crazy months here since our Little One’s birth in October and I am so looking forward to finding some balance again and getting back in the garden! Joy and change abounds! 🙂
Wow. I completely understand. I am a seed hoader. I have a lot of trouble trying to not buy seeds for something new that I see that I want. My family saw me buying flower seeds the other day and they were like “flowers?”. I was like -they are edible flowers. I don’t want to plant something in my small garden that I cannot use. If I had a huge garden, no problem but just my small yard in town. I have to make it productive.
I really need to put a list of my seed I have in stock in my iphone. When I am in the seed department of the store I find myself buying seed that I already have plenty of. That will be my next project.
That’s a great idea! There might even be an app for that 😉
Lol…love this! “Flowers?” YES, flowers! 😉 I’m right there with you on the production side! So important when the land is tight!