Saving seeds will only help you if you remember where you put those saved seeds and what they are. This seed packet template will help you keep things organized and guarantee a bumper crop next year. Although bumpers as we all know are notoriously difficult to grow.
If you've been doing things right this summer there are two things you have in your possession right now. A speeding ticket and a garden full of vegetables. Who can resist the urge of rolling down the windows on a hot summer night, blaring Muscle Shoals music on a dusty country road that happens to be filled with radar detectors?
Having said that, I should point out that if you speed you probably never get ticketed. It's the people who speed once in their life who get caught that very time.
I realized at a young age that my wages from the mall clothing store could not support both a pair of bondage pants and a speeding ticket so I didn't speed. I still don't. But if I one day do speed - I will get a ticket.
It's the same law that ensures the day you're finally getting your hair cut it looks fantastic and the one time you go out wearing pajama pants with a mustard stain on the crotch, wearing a fork as a barrette you will run into an ex.
Then there's the vegetables. If you planted even the smallest garden you should be overrun with vegetables and flowers by now. Unless cucumber beetles passed some sort of stupid wilt onto your zucchini, in which case you're not overwhelmed with vegetables but merely overrun. There's a difference.
To save zucchini seeds, by the way, you have to let the zucchini get to mammoth proportions so the seeds are big enough to harvest. The size of zucchini you'd normally eat barely even has visible seeds. So let it grow, let it grow, let it grow if you want to save seeds.
Most people also have flowers blooming, tomatoes growing and herbs going to seed. So NOW is the time to start collecting seeds to use next year. At the very least now is the time to print out really cute Art of Doing Stuff seed packets for free.
I made these just for you.
Just click on the packets above and you'll get the full sized image which you can print on your computer and then cut them out for seed packets. 2 of them should fill an entire standard size piece of computer paper. If it doesn't fill the entire page check to make sure your printing mode is set to full size, or just increase the percentage until it's large enough. The cleaver on the package is my own, actual cleaver by the way. I took a picture of it and then fiddled with the photo until it looked just right for the seed package.
You can print the seed packets on regular computer paper or do what I did which was use plain brown paper. Just cut the brown paper to the size of standard computer paper.
Print the packets, cut them out and fold them along the fold lines. Glue or tape the back together and start sorting seeds.
As your seeds start to become available now you won't have to use regular envelopes that are way too big to hold the few seeds you have.
So print at will and print as often as you like.
If you missed the link up top, here is the link to the seed packets. I'll have an in depth look at how to save seeds in a post coming up.
And just say no to speeding. On the other hand I don't want to hear that any of you have EVER turned down the volume of Sweet Home Alabama.
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Jake
OMG! Karen with a cleaver, scary, scary, scary. Then on the other hand, a farting shopping cart. All is right with the world.
Diane
Forget the seeds! Where did you get those SHOES! I want a pair!
Karen
Thailand! ~ karen
Jean
Is that a kitchen-type cleaver or a horror-movie type cleaver? Because at first it looked kind of scary to me, but when you said it was your actual cleaver, I was hoping it was just from the kitchen.
Karen
It is both Jean. ~ karen!
Jean
I see! Then I am both intrigued and horrified. :-D
Teresa
Hahahahahahaha
Lynne
How cute. I was just looking at the variegated morning glories I've got growing in my two urns on my front porch this morning and noticed seed pods - and thought to myself "I gotta pick those and then I can start my own plants next spring".
Very timely post Karen. Ta.
Pam'a
Lynne-- Just try and stop them. They reseed like crazy.
Tina
Oh! Would you consider sharing a few morning glory seeds? I love them!
Tina
AKing
These are great, thanks Karen! I was also drawn to your top immediately, looks so comfy and cute at the same time!
Feral Turtle
Your seed packets are so cute! I try really hard not to speed but I do live down a dusty country road and you guessed it, when Sweet Home Alabama comes on, my lead foot shows! Too bad it couldn't show in those awesome shoes you are sporting!
Tigersmom
PS - Your nails are done! They look lovely. And I love your top. More info on that please and perhaps a proper pic of it along with the Thailand dress please.
Karen
Thx Tigersmom. I actually had no idea my nails were done! The top is from lord knows where. It's from one of the shows I shot a few years ago. ~ karen!
Tigersmom
These are adorable. And so handy.
Being that I'm only in the cooking real food phase of my conversion and don't have any seeds to harvest because anything I have that wasn't getting hit by the sprinklers has croaked, I am dreaming up many alternative uses for these. Like holding the hardware off of furniture pieces I'm painting or separating the parts of jewelry I'm reworking.
So, thanks. These are way cuter than the manila envelopes and, should I want to get fancy ('cause sometimes I do), I can print them on colored paper.
There will be no confessions, er -I mean talk, of speeding tickets here.
Maria
Thanks for the craft idea. I was wrapping them up in paper towels and putting them in old medicine bottles but that's not a good idea?
For me, I never turn down the volume on B-52's Love Shack. How else do I sing the parts and sound so good unless the volume is loud enough to 1. Make me sound good and 2. Cover the sound of the police siren coming up behind me?
Thanks again
Su
Oh my - super cute seed packets and printed on brown paper the seed packetss can used as gifts for other so inclined folks at Xmas.... brilliant... :)
Gina
Where'd you get those shoes? Are they a slipper?
Karen
They're a slipper shoe Gina. I got them in Thailand. :) ~ karen
Ruth
Months of drought and sketchy water supply means I have no seeds since everything keeled over and gave up the ghost, but I'll save these for next year... when I will be sensible and plant in containers instead.
Thanks Karen. :-)
Teresa
I live in Alabama, so I've seen several folks with their windows rolled down, radio blaring Sweet Home Alabama on a hot summer night! I understand the draw....not that I've ever got a ticket for it! Thanks for the seed packets! They are sweet. I won't be saving any seeds from Zucchini or Cucumber because the worms got it all this summer. I only harvested ONE yellow squash and two sweet potato squash that were inedible because of the worms in them (though I did save the seeds from those two). This year it is a bumper crop of Roma tomatoes, so I am up to my elbows in 'maters' and mater seeds! Ah! The glory of organic gardening!
Linda W
Love your shoes!
Kim from Milwaukee
That was the first thing I saw, too!!! Where did you get them, Karen? Super cute!
Gwennie
The last time I got a ticket I had two kids and my mother-in-law in the car, and we were ten minutes from our Door County cottage. When the officer asked if I knew I was speeding, I honestly said I didn't. My m-i-l, so helpfully, said "oh, I knew! The limit changed a while back, but since you have been speeding the the whole trip, I didn't say anything." Let's just say it wasn't the most relaxing weekend away!
Ember
P.S.aforementioned three children under the age of 8 can belt out all the words to Sweet Home Alabama with the best of them. I'm a 'Bama girl so its required! Love your posts! You are always so nifty!!
Ember
Sigh...alas...the kidlets and I did not a lot right with the container gardening, but we had fun, got dirty, and actually, by the grace of God had actual plants grow. We do have one eggplant the size of a tennis ball growing so we feel successful! Thanks for the inspiration. My kids are 7, 6, and 4 and its been fun showing them how to grow plants this summer! Alas, maybe next year we will grow actual food..lol! Love the packets...I'm thinking craft project..:)
Cathy Reeves
Ooohhh, you could put that cleaver on a tea towel! Print that sucker right up!!
Karen
:) I'll have to stick with the old tea towel cleaver for now. No time to do a new one, but I HAVE thought of how great it would be for the tea towel. One day. ~ karen!
judy
I feel better about paying for the speeding ticket of my more than adult son who is a great guy with ADD compliments of moi and swears he never speeds and on the occasion when he does he ALWAYS gets a ticket. One of the nicest thing about the internet for this old person has been the discovery of wonderful people like you and your fans. So smart-so funny.........Thanks ............you are a gift.
Mary Werner
Thanks Judy - as one of Karen's fans, I couldn't agree more. Reading her comments is almost as much fun as readying her blog!
Tina
Yes! I agree! I love the comments!
Lynn
Thanks Judy I agree with you also , Karen is a blast to read an are her fans 😄
amyfaith
"Who can resist the urge of rolling down the windows on a hot summer night, blaring *Metallica* on a dusty country road?"
There, fixed that for ya ;-)
Karen
LOL. ~ k
Katie
YES. One of my favorite memories as a volunteer-art-teacher-who-also-drove-school-busses) on a South Dakotan indian reservation was dropping the last kid off on a sunny day warm day (after a long, disgusting winter) and BOMBING home along dusty country roads...and then Enter Sandman came on the radio. Oh, my. Yes, you can definitely speed in a 40-foot school bus. Gleefully.
Vanessa
I was going to say it’s gotta be We’re not gonna take it by Twisted Sister but Enter Sandman is another good one.
Ev Wilcox
"Alabama" is Ok, but "Metallica" is great!