Gardening · Reviews

Survival Garden Seeds Seed Storage Organizer Review

A few weeks back, I saw the Survival Garden Seeds Seed Storage Organizer at the Walmart in Martinsburg, WV. I walked away from it, but it kept calling to me.

The closest Walmart in Charlestown, WV didn’t carry it in the garden section, but I was coming back through Martinsburg the other night, and caved for it.

Most years, my seeds sit in a mess, in zip-top bags, in a random storage bin. This isn’t very efficient. I rarely know what I have, and have to dig through it all.

The Description:

  • Seed Organizer – Organize your seeds in one safe space using this portable seed storage kit. You can also save seeds from your garden harvest for breeding purposes or create a personal seed vault for future stability and self-reliance.
  • Perfectly Sized – Fits most conventional seed packet sizes. The handy file dividers help you easily find your seeds for planting and organization. The dividers have seed-saving instructions for major vegetable, herb, and flower varieties.
  • Paper Envelopes – Blank paper envelopes have plenty of room for adding details on variety, growing conditions, or any other notes a gardener might want to keep track of for future growing seasons. Perfect for any gardener who wants to select traits for their future crops or keep a record of what has worked in the past.
  • Seed Protection – The sturdy waterproof, rodent-proof container keeps your seeds safe and secure from moisture or pest damage.

Does it do all this?

It’s a nicely made plastic ammo can with a handle. The side locks down, and like ammo cans, it can take two locks (hardcore seed protection?). I hope not to have to test it for rodent protection, but at the same time, it’s good to know that, in theory, it is safer. It is also black and will block light from getting to the seeds inside.

It comes with 20 seed envelopes for seeds you save, with plenty of room to take notes. It also comes with 15 dividers labeled for the major types of seeds (Onions, Greens, Flowers, etc.). There are 12 labeled and 3 you can mark on your own. My only argument is that they didn’t have dividers for beans, peas, or corn. That was odd.

The box has 5 foam blocks that can be used if you haven’t filled it up with seed packets to keep it all tidy. Think of it as a bookshelf end—your seeds won’t fall over. If your box is full, store or toss the blocks.

Yes, it works well. Setting up and getting your seeds all pointing up and in order is easy. It’s also easy to grab and take outside, then bring back in, after you do your seeding. I feel its price is decent enough for what it is.

I would suggest that if you are storing open seed packets, partially used, seal the packets with Scotch tape, so the seeds don’t get shaken out by accident. It’s an excellent policy of mine to check that I have done this every year. Because the truth is, no matter what seed companies tell you, most seeds will germinate for years, as long as you store them out of the sun/heat/cold. They might also not germinate at a high rate, but you will get enough for most uses. That’s a real issue with seeds – you only need a couple of plants, but get 75 seeds? No need to throw them away! You can also, every year, go through your seeds and share last year’s in case you want to buy fresh seeds or new varieties.

FTC Discalimer: This post contaisn affilate links.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading

Building My Patio Garden

If I could find a positive outcome of my arm injury this summer, it is that I reclaimed the patios around our house. I would look out and sigh at the mess it had all become, but getting started on it never happened until I couldn’t work in the big gardens on the homestead. And suddenly, I had the time to get going on the mess just outside our home.

Seeing this area become liveable has brought me a lot of happiness.

Part 1 is when I found a tool that let me go from “I can’t” to “Wow!”.

In part 2, we did the upper patios and started moving plants up from the lower gardens to around the house.

That is when I noticed something. Nearly every plant I brought up suddenly grew faster and better than the ones down below in the homesteading gardens. This summer has been a struggle; so far, not a single night has been over 59*. In-ground growth is highly affected by that. Up on the patios, the paver stones bake in the sun all afternoon and radiate heat as night settles back into the plants. Our strawberry crop has boomed due to the extra warmth.

I have had one lonely 8-foot raised bed by the lower patio that I often ignored over the years. However, since my injury, I paid attention to it this summer.

It’s been highly productive this year and is still putting on peas, even at the end of August. A huge mess of Swiss Chard and four tomatoes also grow in it; all are doing great in this off-summer.

After the growing season is over, my plan is to tear it down (it is made with excess paver blocks I found in the woods), remove the soil, and store it. Then, I will put 4 to 6 raised beds next to the lower patio in a grassy area next to it. I have decided I need a “kitchen garden” to walk out to and harvest easily from. With moving up all the potted alpine strawberries, I have noticed how everyone is eating them. It’s right outside the house, so whenever people walk by, they get nibbled on. Convenience trumps for sure.

To add to this, I had seen a plant stand on Amazon for under $34. At that price point, I figured I would try it out.

Alistaire opened the compact box and assembled it in 15 minutes or so. It was very easy to put together and seems of decent quality. I found another version without the hanging part that I am considering getting so I can stack the plants up high and have more growing. It’s 5 foot 4 inches in height, and yes, it has occurred to me that it would be great for use in a greenhouse as well.

More dreaming, planning, and getting projects done in the dwindling days of summer as fall approaches.

~Sarah

Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

The Homesteading Tool I Didn’t Know I Needed

Kirk picked me up a hand tool on Amazon, and at first, I thought, “Why would I need this?” After trying it out, I wondered why I hadn’t had one for years.

The tool is so simple. It’s a metal mason jar opener that opens bottle caps and tight metal lids on jars as well.

I use it most to pop the lids on Mason jars. I no longer have to chip my fingernails or try to use a butter knife to pop under the lid.

Can openers used to have a metal tab I could use to pop mason jar lids, but in the past decade, I have noticed they don’t have it on heavy-duty can openers anymore. It works exactly as described. It’s nothing exciting, but it is a tool you will wonder how you got by without.

And you will save your fingernails (and fingernail polish as well).

For less than $10. It was a win and a great gift to recieve.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

The Patio Restoration Part 2

In July, I wrote about the Crevice Brush tool I had picked up on Amazon and how we used it to restore the lower patio by our house.

As it has stretched into August, I have had the boys out most mornings working on the other patio areas. Work for an hour or two as the sun rises, before it gets hot. And slowly all the patio parts started looking so much better.

The tool we bought came with two brush heads, and yes, we wore the first down! It did such an amazing job however.

We were starting the upper patio here. It had gotten pretty ugly the past 6.5 years. The moss and weeds we had mostly removed by here.

I removed the chairs that sat here, and instead brought up a long line of potted plants to enjoy. Alpine strawberries, parsley, and 4 basil plants. They get full sun after 11 am.

I moved the chairs over and parked more plants around them. Lavender on the ground, Thyme and Valerian starts on the table.

We kept at it. We brought down the loveseat couch, mini table, and the big table. Moved the Solo Stove to its new home.

The upper patio has a lower patio as well, with two separate sets of stairs. I had the boys work on this side first, so I could put the grills all down on it.

I brought up all the strawberry pots from down on the homestead garden, and put them around the couch.

I had two new blueberry bushes this spring, that were in pots. I had them hauled up, and they sit where they Traeger grill used to be .

It encouraged me to bring up all the pretty pots of flowers that I didn’t get to enjoy in the gardens below.

The hardest part has been the lower patio strip. It’s often shaded, so the moss is very thick. Add in that everything swept off the upper patio has gone to die there for six or more years, and there are many weeds growing up.

The second stairs going down to it.

We kept moving the big grill, so we could cleanthe paverst. Slowly, we got it done.

This morning.

We now have a fire pit area and the ability to cook easily out there. Now the big grill isn’t under the trees, for safety. It needs a new cover, but fall is still awhile away.

The raised bed that circles around the patio still needs work. When we moved in in 2018, I ripped everything out (it had been horribly overgrown) and planted herbs in it. It’s out of control once again. We spent the weekend starting to pull plants out and cutting back all the invasive weeds (so many types of thorny blackberry canes, choking everything out). Still a lot more to do in it, but I am grooming and pruning it.

But at this point I am just so happy. We took a horrible mess and made it usable – and pretty – once again. Now we can use our patios and not feel bad about how they look.

Up next? A new kitchen garden to build this fall, along with deer fencing to keep them out of the lower patio area.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Tools For The Homestead: Crevice Weeding Brush

With my arm healing, I have had far more time to wander online. This has led me to look at many “tools you need!” for your garden articles. This isn’t bad because finding the crevice weeding brush was a winner for an ugly problem with no easy solution I could think of. The kit was less than $27, shipped one day for me, and came with the pole and two brushes. There are no instructions, but putting together and getting outside is straightforward. My thought was…$27 was a low enough price if it didn’t work.

When we bought the property 6.5 years ago, it came with two patio areas that are paver stones. Being by the house, it was easy to ignore it while we worked for years on conquering the outlying areas, building gardens, and such. One of the biggest issues is that it faces the West and is baked by the sun from noon to 8 pm in summer. Sitting outside is too hot and bright, so the patios have been wasted on us. And I let it go. Weeds love to pop up in the cracks around the pavers, and they fill up with moss. It has progressed gradually and has become worse each year. I tried to power wash it last summer, but it didn’t do much. Mostly, I’d bend over and hand-pick weeds as I saw them, but they’d come back quickly enough. And let’s face it, planting a garden is more fun than hand-picking dry weeds and trying to curl back dead moss strips.

Since I was injured this summer and unable to work in the garden area of our land (I rely on the boys to keep it alive until fall), I have had a lot more time to sit and look outside at the awful state of the patios.

It had gotten so bad that we had lost rows of pavers to the weeds growing over them. The youngest helped find the corner on the lower patio, which the lowest level of the house opens out onto. With summer in full swing, the weeds are dying back, making this the best time of the year to do the work.

The weeds have grown up to the stairs and the pathway that heads downhill. The pathway might be the worst, as it is half as wide as it should be. This is my fault for ignoring it. We could barely see the walkway.

The moss is dormant right now, and crispy, which power washing doesn’t remove, but….

The crevice brush is fantastic. It works. I can’t do it with one hand, but it’s quick work for the boys, taking turns—just a few strokes and the dirt, moss, and dead grass pop right out.

The first nine rows are mostly done. Some of the bigger weed masses will have to be removed by hand, by pulling, but the brush will remove the very shallow roots that is most common.

The brush in action.

We used a leaf blower to blow the debris off. After doing a row, we would give it a good blow.

It only took about 3 hours to do it all (and that was a slow 3 hours, with a lot of putzing). If I had been doing it, I probably would have taken 1 to 1.5 hours.

Kirk battled the walkway with the weed eater to get the overgrowth under control. Then they got to it with the brush. It’s not 100% done, but it looked amazing compared to before.

The lower patio and walkway are nearly done. Such a huge difference. The steps are being demossed, so they won’t be slippery this coming winter. We still need to remove the mass at the base of the stairs, a flat shovel works wonders in getting it up, then we will use the brush.

The upper patio has been started. Thankfully it was not as bad as the top, and only truly bad in a few spots.

Money is well spent on this tool! I feel like I got our patio back and it just looks so much nicer now.

Soon we will power wash it for the season, but I don’t feel any rush now.

~Sarah