Here is my short version of swap rules.

Collect, pack and share seeds the way that you would like to receive seeds.

Please date all seed packets with the name of the enclosed seeds and year collected as neatly as possible.

If you fail to send your "sold" seeds in, you will not receive seeds "dibbed" by you. They will either be returned to the sender or evenly distributed between the other players. This would be the decision of the player that sent the seeds in.

We're pushing it close to holiday time with this swap due to the other swaps that are going on just before and after. Please send your seeds by the posted due date!

Payment for your return envelope will be a flat rate bubble envelope which is $ 7.25. This can be cash,check, money order or stamps.

I've copied Alana's instructions from last year below. If you have any questions feel free to send a message.

. This is an overview of how the swap works. Please ask for clarification as needed.

After signing up, all participants can see who has joined the swap and will be able to tell what seeds have been placed up for "adoption" by other players. Each person that joins will add their offerings to the Seed Swap Database and will activate those seeds to make them available for the swap. There is no time frame for adding seeds, but in order to request seeds on opening day you must have at least one kind of seeds offered for trade in this swap. There is no limit on how many packets of a specific seed you can offer. You will have a link on your swap page that will take you to the page for listing your available seeds.

As you add seeds to your personal list you can choose to have those seeds either private so that only you can see them, or make them public but not yet available, or public and available. No one can select your seeds from the database unless you have joined a swap and have made them available to trade in that particular swap. To make them available for a specific swap you will need to have them listed as available and ready to trade and then take one extra step. After you join a swap and have made a selection available and ready you must go to the far left of the listing and activate that selection for a particular swap by checking the box for that swap. There will be a column for each swap you are participating in at that time. In this way you can keep some seeds out of a swap altogether while maintaining them in your master list, and can divide selections between more than one swap if you have joined concurrent swaps.
It may sound a little complicated, but once you join and use the features Dave provided in the system it becomes clear and simple. You will have a way to establish a wish list so that you don't miss opportunities to get your most desired selections, you will be able to see what you have won and will be receiving at a glance, and you will have a printable list to help you pack when you are ready to send your seeds.

For this swap there is no minimum or maximum limit to how many seeds you can list. Don't post more than you want to send in any circumstance as once someone selects them you are obligated to send them. Until a seed has been claimed you have the option to remove it from the swap. Not all of your seeds will "sell" and it is not certain you will "buy" as many as you have obligated yourself to send. You are not obliged to list all of your offerings before the swap starts and can add seeds anytime during the active swapping phase. You will not be sending in unclaimed seeds.

Likewise there is no limit, outside the confines of the duration of the swap and the number of packets offered, to how many you can request, no matter how many you list. This is not a one for one swap. The more desirable seeds you list, the more "dibs" you have to choose what you want. To insure that everyone is able to get some of their favorite offerings the system is set up to allow a limited number of selections per player per day. Everyone will start with the same number of "dibs" on day one. That number will increase daily and the opening allowance will be determined by the number of seeds offered. It could be as low as 3 for the first day and build from there. The system also awards bonus "dibs" based on how many seeds other players select from your list. Players who list a lot of seeds and seeds that are highly desirable and are quickly "purchased" earn extra opportunities on a diminishing scale, starting with 1 extra "dib" for every two packs "sold" on day 1 and diminishing each day thereafter. These extra earned selections are made immediately available and can be used at any time. There were a few hundred left over dibs last year. You will find by day 4-5 you have plenty of requests available to you.

Once the swap is over you will bundle the seeds you have "sold" each player and label them accordingly. All seeds will be sent to me and redistributed to the "buyers." The system only allows one choice for the cost of return postage, but you can send your seeds to me by Priority Mail or First Class Mail and I will return them using either method, as you choose. You can include 7.00 for a priority mail return, or if you have selected 50 packs or fewer you can send 3.50 for First Class mail with delivery confirmation. Please, no preprinted postage. My Post Office believes I'm not supposed to mail anything with postage originating outside my town from here- best to send cash, check, Paypal, M.O. or for first class postage only, stamps.

One important thing that I don't think was mentioned...

It is very important to get a tracking number on the package of seeds that you mail to Lisa. Be sure to keep a copy of the tracking number in case your package gets lost or delayed. You'll need to send the number (via the seed-swap system) to Lisa as soon as you mail your seeds. Seed swap packages have gotten lost or temporarily lost before. Having the tracking number not only shows proof that you actually sent your seed package in, but also helps the post office find the misdirected package and get it back on course.

Most traders already know this, but in case there are newbies...

Be sure to mail seeds in either a box or a good padded envelope/bubble mailer. Mailing seeds in flat envelopes (even with added bubble wrap) will usually result in cracked or crushed seed. Very sad!

Just hoping I can have until tomorrow afternoon to get my seeds listed before trading Sunday. This will likely be the only swap I can join this year, so... I'm late but here!

I'll be scrambling to list after DnD's Swap - lots of different things to list and a few of the same.

I hope you can make it in time! I thought the swap started today

The 18th - Sunday night.

I didn't join DNDs just because I didn't want to juggle around seeds but I was under the impression there was a way to keep them separate...

The easiest way to keep them separate is to list them twice, then check one swap for one of the entries and another swap for the other. But I get lazy and list once, then have to go back and edit the listing.

This one is Sun to Sat, yes? Hope everyone can steal away during thanksgiving to do some dibbing.

I'm sorry everyone. I thought that if I waited until DND's swap ended tonight to start this one that I would outsmart the system.

I too have had to go in and change quantities of seed packets available! It's very time consuming. I already had them separated and filed alphabetically for each swap. I had to pretty much empty each baggie and compare to what I had available.

As much as I love this swap system, I really wish that each time you edit something you didn't have to go back to the page again and again. I wonder if it would be an easy fix for @dave to make it so you could make all your edits and save them all at once?

I still have oodles of seeds that I can add in before the end of the swap if I have the time and my neck holds out.

Maggie{faerygardener} has decided to not bid on seeds in the swap due to what she feels is a safety risk for her computer. I'm not computer savvy at all but she is and is not comfortable using the system. She has asked if I could send her the list of people that dibbed her seeds via email at the end of the swap so that she can share her seeds with whoever dibs on them. I told her that I could do that. She was mainly looking for California poppies. I have a few types that I'll be sending off to her. If you have any California poppies{only California poppies} to share with her, I'll gladly send them along with mine and copy and post her thank you here for all to see.

seed info as of this morning is:

1789 different seed offers
2651 seed packets being offered
3401 wishlisted

The swap will start Sunday night at 7pm eastern time. The multiplier is currently set at 3 tickets. This may change..

"Maggie{faerygardener} has decided to not bid on seeds in the swap due to what she feels is a safety risk for her computer. I'm not computer savvy at all but she is and is not comfortable using the system." @dave, could you address this concern for the benefit of all swappers?

@faerygardener, please read this post The thread "Can someone explain this to me please, the short version" in Site Talk forum and the one titled 'Unusual Message' (fairly lengthy) in the Site Talk forum. Hopefully, this will help allay your concerns.

I wish too that in the edit system there was a way to edit and save them all at one time. It is very time consuming going back and forth

A trick I learned from someone in DnD's swap: Open each one in a new tab, then edit that way. Saves me from going back and forth.

janinilulu said:@faerygardener, please read this post The thread "Can someone explain this to me please, the short version" in Site Talk forum and the one titled 'Unusual Message' (fairly lengthy) in the Site Talk forum. Hopefully, this will help allay your concerns.

Thank you, Janine! I knew that was here somewhere but did not have time to look earlier. I think Dave also addressed this type of concern about using the system in the Beta swap, or maybe elsewhere.

I just showed my IT specialist (and husband) the pertinent posts and he agrees that our (the NGA community) computers are in no danger.

Maggie will not return to this site I wish she would come and play!

This was the message I received regarding her concerns;

Hi Lisa - I'm not logging in to garden. org.. Get a message it's trying to capture my OS for it's records - immediately shut down all my connections - happens over a few days and tries. Don't care what he says - don't trust OTHER hackers getting into his site and don't want that info with my id. I won't change my mind.



So - as hostess - can you print a list of who is sending what once the swap is over? I can still send you what I've listed (I have it, most of it is packed) and pack it into individual baggies if I can get a list.




If not, I can send you everything I had listed not in baggies




I just won't claim anything and that's fine - I really have more than enough seed.




Ok to copy and share this as a post if you want, also ok to call.




Let me know what works best.




Thanks!!

Maggie

Lisa I have three things wish listed from Maggie that I will delete...personally I think that will be a lot of extra work for you to have to divvy up someones seeds.

@Ishareflowers, I think once all of us who are converting over from DnD's swap will alter those numbers a bit!