Hey yall!

Not sure if this is allowed, please delete if not.

While you all are waiting for this seed swap to start; I'm part of a few other seed swaps I wanted to share with you guys since it seems like everyone in this group is a seed swapper of sorts, excited about sharing seeds, etc.

One on a facebook group called 'FORAR Seed Swap' that is similar to this swap and it starts October 1st; and ends Oct 10th. In this swap you have to join the facebook group called. 'Official FORAR Seed Swap' and essentially it's like this swap on www.garden.org but you have to write out your lists and you swap on the day it starts.

Another easy one that is totally different is by an instagram user. It's only available for about 20 people and what you do with that one is send 20 seeds of various types, and you receive 20 different seeds back from people across the USA. Here's the link to join that one: https://www.etsy.com/listing/8...

There is a fee for the above one; because it covers return shipping!

Happy swapping, can't wait for this one to start (I'm new to garden.org and heard about this via a reddit thread).

Also to clarify someone asked if you get to know ahead of time what seeds you might get for these swaps; and my answer is below:

For the facebook group one yes; you will be able to see what seeds everyone is offering before you actually choose to trade, on Oct. 1st they will open the swap and everyone post the list of seeds they have and the list of seeds that they want. On Oct 1st (similar to the one on this website where you pick dibs) you just comment and say hey, you have orange brandywine tomato seeds; would you trade for marigold seeds? If the swapper says yes, then you have a deal. Just like this one, you will send all your seeds to one person who will send them all back to you.

However, with the etsy one; you do NOT get to find out what seeds you get back until your package returns. You can put any 20 seeds in a packet; and you will get a mystery 20 seeds in return. Which is kinda fun if you have enough seeds and like a little danger.

The etsy one sounds like what we use to do on GardenWeb.

There are alot of seed swaps out there on various groups/sites.

The reason i love the garden.org swaps is the "simplicity" of getting the seeds you want--getting to see what is available, and having a fair chance to get what you really want with the computerized format. Its spoiled me for other swaps! Just my humble opinion.

I agree this swap has spoiled me! The program keeps track of all my seeds for me so I don't have to keep rechecking to make sure I didn't miss someone or forget to add a packet of seeds somewhere. It's so time saving having the program do all the organizing for me on this end. All I have to do is keep all my seeds where I can find them. Dave did such a great job putting this swap together. It's the best!

I'm in the FORAR group and this will be my first one. There's another group called Susie's Seed Attic that does a similar swap. You set up all your trades & send to one person, who then gathers them all & sends back to the recipients. And another group does what I've heard called "blind swaps". You send everything in & the host splits them up between everyone. I like them all for various reasons, I enjoy the surprise of blind swaps but also like being able to pick specific things. (And yes, I freely admit I have an obsession for seed collecting.)

I have a seed obsession as well!

This is my first time with this one, and my first time w/the FORAR one (which are similar). I'm really excited about being able to choose seeds; and super thatnkful that this is being hosted (TY HOST!!)

I like the blind ones for the surprise factor too -- also love the idea of picking your own! Another blind swap that's open is on instagram by @jcmgardenseedswap -- she has a jr seed swap with about 25 total participants she's accepting.

The etsy one I posted above is now closed.

I'm doing good to keep up with this one & the little bit of trading I've been doing! Not to mention drying & sorting seeds I've been collecting

My entire greenhouse area is seed mania.

Don't get me started on the fermenting tomato seed smells. I'm trying to get enough malabar spinach seeds for processing to trade but it takes a lot more work. I have to squish the berries, ferment it once; then resquish and ferment again.

I know the fruit flies are very happy rn, lol they're all covered with coffee filters to keep them out but whewieee..

jennlett said:My entire greenhouse area is seed mania.

Don't get me started on the fermenting tomato seed smells. I'm trying to get enough malabar spinach seeds for processing to trade but it takes a lot more work. I have to squish the berries, ferment it once; then resquish and ferment again.

I know the fruit flies are very happy rn, lol they're all covered with coffee filters to keep them out but whewieee..

I have a big spider who built a web above my fermenting seeds! He's gorging on fruit flies!

That a smart spider.

I think they're taking notes from the spiders on my compost bin.. lol.

I encourage people to try out other seed swaps if the seed bug bites ya early, as long as it doesn't prevent you or others from joining this one! But if you're bubbling over with extra seeds, go for it! Just don't let it dissuade you from staying in this swap because this one is very different than swaps on other servers/platforms. Like others, I've been very spoiled by Dave's program on here.

I never got into other seed swaps, personally, because the first time seed swapping ever occurred to me, I didn't realize there were other seed swaps out there! I started thinking about it sometime after I had been to a plant swap and that made my gears turn; I just felt like there ought to be something we could do online to make swapping between multiple people easier and automated in a way. I realized online plant swapping would be too tough on the plants, so I thought how great it would be to swap seeds! And I loved that Dave had a giant database of plants here on garden.org (which was actually called All Things Plants back then). I just kept thinking about warehouses and reseller companies like Amazon and how they can take in products from people all over the world and redistribute them...so why couldn't seed-lovers do something similar? Long story short, it wasn't long before Dave created such a wonderful program on here, more fun than anything I had imagined when I thought of seed swapping, that I find it hard to go try swapping on any other platforms!

...but that doesn't mean that others can't be fun. And sometimes it's nice to try something different. If I had time, I might do a swap on another site just for fun and to see what it's like. I suspect I will in the upcoming years when I become more accustomed to the craziness of parenthood.

Thea and Jenn - Haha, you two are too funny! I am glad that you two appreciate smart spiders! Get those darn fruit flies, spiders! We live in a foresty area, so bugs are a common sight here compared to our last home. I don't mind it except that I am a bug saver--if the bugs are big enough to catch and release, that is (fruit flies are not). That means we are regularly running for the plastic solo cup and postcard (our makeshift bug catcher) and running bugs outside. Sometimes I appreciate the hidden spiders we haven't found yet, because no doubt they are helping minimize our job a bit

DogsNDaylilies said:Thea and Jenn - Haha, you two are too funny! I am glad that you two appreciate smart spiders! Get those darn fruit flies, spiders! We live in a foresty area, so bugs are a common sight here compared to our last home. I don't mind it except that I am a bug saver--if the bugs are big enough to catch and release, that is (fruit flies are not). That means we are regularly running for the plastic solo cup and postcard (our makeshift bug catcher) and running bugs outside. Sometimes I appreciate the hidden spiders we haven't found yet, because no doubt they are helping minimize our job a bit

I'm a bug saver myself but spiders gotta eat too