Marcia

A shed or garage will work for drying, as long as there is adequate ventillation & the temperature does not exceed 90 degrees. This is best for drying seed pods.

But if you have forced-air heating & air conditioning, the best place to dry seeds is in your home. The AC reduces humidity in the summer for even drying. The forced-air heat (unless you use a humidifier) will result in even lower humidity in early winter, and further dry your seeds. By December or January, they will be dry enough to store.

Once properly dried, store seeds in sealed containers (or envelopes within containers). Cool, dark areas with constant temperature & low humidity are best.

There have been many references to the use of zip-lock bags causing seed death; these are probably due to inadequate drying, or exposure to excessive heat during storage. I have used plastic bags for many years, with no problems. Just allow some air to remain in the bag (don't squeeze all the air out) and open the bags a couple times a year (when humidity is low) if storing large quantities.

I've got seeds on the bookcase, shelves, another bookcase, a room divider and a nightstand, and oh yeah, I've got corn drying on a wall rack, LOL!

I'm running out of places to dry my seeds.

Steph

Seed Savers Exchange uses paper bags for their bean & pea pods, to allow some drying prior to shelling. If you choose to use paper bags, keep them open & provide good ventillation. A small fan (or ceiling fan) works well for this. If drying large amounts of shelled seeds in a paper bag, stir or shake them several times a day, especially for the first week.

My recommendation would be to dry seeds on plates, trays, or cookie sheets for the first week, then transfer them to paper bags.

I use $3 photoboxes from Wal-Mart for final storage. I put all my seeds into size 3 coin envelopes (including those recieved in trade just in case they weren't totally dry yet) that get label with all the info I can find on the plant. The boxes that the coin envelopes come in are the perfect size to hold my trade packs which I use 2x3 inch craft baggies for...again labeled with all info available. I made dividers for the photoboxes with cardstock to keep the envies organized. And most importantly I use packs of silica gel available from the shoe store to help absorb moisture.

Then I keep everything (photoboxes, trade packs, bubble mailers and mailing supplies, seed catalogs, extra coin envies, craft baggies, and notebooks with trader info, etc.) all within this rolling plastic sterilite cart. Makes it much easier to keep everything organized. This cart stays in the most temperature constant room in my house, the dining room. And we drilled holes to install padlocks on the drawers to keep curious little fingers out because we all know that a lot of seeds are at least midly poisonous if not very. Don't need any trips to the emergency room. And this is also why drying seeds are stacked on top of the dresser...they are a good 7 feet from the floor. Click on the thumbnails below for bigger pics.
~Netta

Thanks for sharing :)
--Tina

With my fingers into so many different things (drawing & painting, floral arrangement, faberge style eggs, ukranian eggs, other kinds of ethnic eggs, sewing, quilting, jewelry, interior design, victorian christmas crafts, trash to treasure, bobbin lace, crochet, knitting, romance novels, and so many other things I can't name them all)I have to be organized or my house would look like a nuclear bomb went off in it.

I don't like to do anything half-full and like to do things properly. I read everything that I could for almost a whole week on GW about Winter Sowing, Seed Saving, and Trading just so I could do it right and avoid the mistakes that I guess a lot of other newbies make.

So far this system is working great for me...we'll see when I outgrow it. ;)

Netta