One of my big goals for the 2013 garden is to get away from placing such big seed orders every spring by saving more seeds from my garden. I know myself well enough to know that I will never be entirely seed catalog independent (there are just too many things I still need to try!) nor will I fully escape the lure of the impulse buy from the seed display at the garden center, but even if I can simply narrow down that list to a handful of new-to-me selections each year by saving seed from the varieties in my regular rotation, I'll count that as a success. I'm actually quite excited about this plan and am looking forward to fine tuning my seed saving skills. Though if I'm going to be completely honest, I have to confess that I am really going to miss one thing about purchasing so many seeds each year: the seed packets!
As I've slowly been integrating more and more saved seeds into my seed stash, I've realized that while the contents of the plain white envelopes are exciting, the plain white envelopes are, well, not. There are no beautiful photographs or illustrations, no vivid descriptions, and no color, so I decided that if I'm going to be serious about saving seeds, I need to bring a little life to my seed stash (and be able to provide a little life for those I share my seeds with as well!).
The basic template can be printed on a variety of different papers. My absolute favorite packets have been simply printed on garden veggie themed scrapbook paper (like the onion print above!), but other times I'll chose a favorite garden photo of the variety to pop into the template. If I'm feeling really crafty, I even cut out wrap around labels or little vegetable cut outs, like the bright and colorful packets of edamame I'm using as valentines for a few lucky garden friends this year. On the back of each packet, I always include the variety, year, source, and any growing notes that might be helpful to remember (days to maturity, determinate or indeterminate, etc.). Even at their simplest, they are way more fun to sort through than plain envelopes!
Want to make your own seed packets? I have made my template available to download and print for personal use.
Labels: garden projects, seed saving, seeds
