Post a reply

Image
Nov 18, 2015 10:47 AM CST
Name: Andi
Delray Beach, FL (Zone 10b)
Charter ATP Member I helped beta test the first seed swap
Imagine how much garbage each American generates! If everyone had to think about their "garbage footprint" we would all do things differently.

Imagine a year's worth of garbage for your household in a pile in front of your house! Combine your pile with your neighbors's piles!

It has been a while since there was a "garbage strike" in NYC. I remember spending a summer in the city during a garbage strike. I remember the piles of garbage in some neighborhoods (other neighborhoods had no garbage in sight). I also remember the rats larger than cats!!! OMG, they had tails as thick as a finger - ewwwww.
Image
Nov 18, 2015 1:02 PM CST
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
I save plastic bags and re-use them, if they aren't too grotty.

My Rube Goldberg method for a sandwich baggy is to wrap it as tightly as possible around the 2x3" Zip-Locs ... then Scotch-Tape the flap so nothing falls out. To make it easier to open, I stick a tiny slip of paper onto the free end of the Scotch Tape. That makes it into a pull-tab.

Just to be even more fussy, I press the Scotch tape against my palm 1-2 times before sticking it down, so it 'releases" a little easier.

I would use a more elaborate method if I could think of 0one!
Image
Nov 18, 2015 2:11 PM CST
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
GardenQuilts said:...

I'll have to try a table in word....any tips for setup?



Nothing special, but here is the way I do it.

Print double-sided, flip on long edge

Make sure that the top and bottom margins are uniform in the whole doc, so the tables line up, front and back pages.

I put ONE line of text above each table, 10-point with no extra line spacing, - thinking that makes it easier to select the whole table for copy-pasting - but that might be silly. You just need both pages, front and back, to have the same top margin and any text above the table must have the same height on both pages.

Set up the Table:

Insert table, three across and 5-7 rows. You'll add or subtract rows when you copy-paste rows to make as many of each label as you need. (It is easier to print one whole page all the same height rows. Less likely to goof and mis-align rows.)

Select Table. Table Properties.

Thumb of 2015-11-18/RickCorey/54c8e0


- row height 1" for verbose labels, or whatever - this can be tweaked for each label, to fit the text closely, to reduce extra cutting with scissors. If the cells are "tight" to the text, you can cut once along the lines, and both labels will be no larger than necessary. If the margins are large and sloppy, you may want to trim each label to remove unwanted white space.

(I put a Quick-Access button on my toolbar for "table row height" so I could tweak it 0.1" at a time by just clicking.)

- Set the row height "EXACTLY", not "at least". You don't want it to stretch and mis-align the front and back cells. By saying "exactly", you will know when you have too much text to fit, because it scrolls out of sight.

- column width 2.5 inches or less. This gives three-across, and fits into a 3" tall Zip-Loc, but 2.3 inches fits easier. If you print LOTS of labels, 4-accross might work for you.

I run my text "the long way" because it just fits better and I think it's easier to read. If you want tall-skinny labels with text running 'the short way", you might get 4-5 across, but make them 2-2.5 inches tall.. Trial and error!

---
Now click the first tab, "Table". Then "Options"

- some generous margins, so you don't need sub-millimeter-precision when you cut the labels apart. I use around 0.08" cell margins.

Thumb of 2015-11-18/RickCorey/f3d87f

Next I enter text for one variety into TWO cells. One for the front, one for the back.
It's convenient to have them side-by-side in the same table for now.
Cut-and-paste lines from one cell to the other so they are around the same length, and organized for easy reading. I like the name on both sides, bold & 12-14 point. I keep most text around 10 point, or 9 at smallest, to fit gobs of text onto each label.

===

Now you have one table with two cells filled in.

The trick is to COPY that one table (and any line of text above the table) to the second page, so that an IDENTICAL table exists on front and back. They should line up exactly, up-and-down.

Somehow I'm lucky that they always line up left-and-right also. I pick uniform narrow page margins, like 0.4", and I "center" the table on the page. That seemed to work, so now I just copy the doc that worked once, and re-use it!

===

Now you have TWO identical pages, each with two cells full of text.

Delete the "back" text from Page One.
Delete the "front" text form Page Two.

Now copy the text from one cell, to fill in all 3 cells in a row.
I Tab into the cell with text, CTRL-C, then Tab to an empty cell and CTRL-V. Do that to both pages.

Now you have two tables each with one row filled in.
Highlight that entire row and CTRL-C.
Highlight the entire Table and CTRL-V.
That fills every cell in the table with the same text.

Repeat for Page Two.

Now print pages one and two,
print both sides
flip on the long side

Hold the page up to the light so you can see how well-aligned the lines are.
On my printer at work, up-down alignment is usually better than 1 mm, but sometimes slips a little.
Left-right alignment is usually very accurate.

It gets tricky if you mix labels on one page. I always print an entire row as one variety , to reduce my poor little brain's confusion trying to picture where something appears when you tun a page OVER.

It's less wasteful to only use 2/3 of the labels printed, than it is to spend the entire afternoon throwing away attempts to get the right text in the right column.

Hope this was intelligible! Anything that aligns the cells well enough to fit into the Zip-Loc works fine.

I just like to fiddle.


BTW, when I have multiple large packets to split, FIRST I create one table with all the info for 5-7 varieties.
That page has two cells for each variety.
I SAVE that page as the "master copy" of the text. "Archive" would be a better word.

There is always some minor typo that I find later, or want to do differently next year.
By saving the single-page-master-copy, I have it all in one place and can edit and copy-paste later.

As long as I save the master copy, the "bulk" pages can be deleted after printing - they are super-easy to re-create by copy-pasting.

When I want to print everything on the master page, there is a process to reduce the number of mouse-clicks:

I copy that page to create 5-7 separate tables, one for each variety.
One each page, delete the other varieties, leaving only one (or two or three, if you can keep straight which rows are which, on both front and back.)

I may reduce row height or column width on each table, to fit the unique text tightly.
Row height changes must match front-and-back! One goof throws off the whole table.

Then I double that page into "front and back" pages, copy-pasting but CHANGING NOTHING.
Then I copy-paste text to fill all the cells.
Image
Nov 18, 2015 2:33 PM CST
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
Sorry, that sure was verbose, just to print double-sided labels!

The short form is that it's easy to throw off the up-and-down alignment unless every row is the same height, and any text above the table is identical on front and back pages. Setting row height to "EXACTLY" rather than "at least" helps.

Left-and-right alignment was easy for me, but maybe I got lucky. I just set up page margins to be 0.4" all around, and set the table to be "centered on the page".

There are many shortcuts when copy-pasting inside tables. You can copy whole cells if you're careful, and can paste one row to fill an entire table with two swipes and two key-hits.
Image
Nov 18, 2015 2:58 PM CST
Name: Lynne
Houston, TX. Zone 9b (Zone 9b)
Enjoys or suffers hot summers I helped beta test the first seed swap Million Pollinator Garden Challenge
Rick. You could email her your nicely formatted document. Just a thought. Might save a lot of words and save Dave some database space😀
Image
Nov 18, 2015 3:41 PM CST
Name: Andi
Delray Beach, FL (Zone 10b)
Charter ATP Member I helped beta test the first seed swap
Thanks Rick, I'll give it a try. If I get everything to line up , I could put a pretty picture and more instructions on my seed packets. It is tricky to make things reversible.

I am sure I am not the only one trying to print nicer labels for their seeds....If so, I apologize for the inconvenienced electrons.. I doubt we will cause Dave's database space issues, unless we start sending videos or playing video games with each other while we swap ....
Image
Nov 18, 2015 3:54 PM CST
Name: Andi
Delray Beach, FL (Zone 10b)
Charter ATP Member I helped beta test the first seed swap
I use more washable glass containers or freezer paper than plastic bags or plastic wrap. I never use any kind of plastic in the microwave. Experience as a chemical engineer has made me try to avoid plastics (aka volatile petrochemicals) near food. I don't use teflon pans either.

I am a big fan of pyrex and corelle dishes (the saucer fits on top of the bowl as a microwave safe lid) for the microwave . I microwave water or reheat coffee in a pyrex measuring cup.

I like the tiny plastic freezer ziploc bags to freeze small amounts of fresh herbs. I blend larger amounts in the food processor and freeze the mush in large or tiny ice cube trays. I remove the frozen cubes and put them in freezer ziploc bags. I trued using glass jars, but they took too much space in the freezer.

To each their own.
Image
Nov 18, 2015 4:21 PM CST
Name: Andi
Delray Beach, FL (Zone 10b)
Charter ATP Member I helped beta test the first seed swap
The server time is a bit wonky on the main page. at first I thought my computer was wonky...It couldn't possibly be this dark at this time....but it can!

Dave is probably changing something.
Image
Nov 18, 2015 4:48 PM CST
Garden.org Admin
Name: Dave Whitinger
Southlake, Texas (Zone 8a)
Region: Texas Seed Starter Vegetable Grower Tomato Heads Vermiculture Garden Research Contributor
Million Pollinator Garden Challenge Charter ATP Member I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Garden Ideas: Master Level Region: Ukraine Garden Sages
The server time is working correctly for me. It's on top of this page:

http://garden.org/apps/swap/

Right now it says it's 10:48pm which is accurate. In 1 hour and 12 minutes the next day of trading begins.
Image
Nov 18, 2015 5:22 PM CST
Name: Judy
Simpsonville SC (Zone 7b)
Peonies Plant and/or Seed Trader I helped beta test the first seed swap Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Garden Ideas: Level 1
I am going to be out in an actual date with my DH so will not be ready with my trigger finger. Will pick up your leavings later tonight!
Image
Nov 18, 2015 5:33 PM CST
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
>> freezer ziploc bags.

Hmm, I wonder how they get the "zippers" tight against humidity!

Usually in a freezer, desiccation or "freezer burn" is the problem, but pulling a pkt of seeds out of the freezer leads to condensation. I worry about the outside condensation being wicked through the zipper to join the inside condensation ...

Actually, I no longer freeze any seeds. If I did, I would add a desiccant pkt, squeeze out all the air I could, then double-bag with another silica gel pkt. But I'm sure someone freezes their seeds without worrying about water.

Andi, if you should want a sample Word table and don't mind giving out your private email, let me know. But there's nothing special about it, just developing the habits for copy-paste, copy-paste, copy-paste, and learning what NOT to do.

I apologize more for making people hit "page down" than for using up server space.
One image equals thousands (if not millions) of words in text format.

I thought about going back and deleting any of my "ideas" or "suggestions" or "requests" from every thread in this forum except one, and then just paste them into just one thread - out of view unless someone opens that thread. But then in-thread comments would refer to something no longer there, and it would take time.
Image
Nov 18, 2015 5:59 PM CST
Name: Jay
Nederland, Texas (Zone 9a)
Region: Texas Region: Gulf Coast Charter ATP Member I helped beta test the first seed swap I helped plan and beta test the plant database. I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database!
Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant Identifier Tip Photographer Garden Sages Garden Ideas: Master Level Hibiscus
Come one, Come all to Horntoad's Seed Emporium. Best prices in town on the seed you want. All seeds in stock only 1 ticket while they last.
wildflowersoftexas.com



Image
Nov 18, 2015 6:00 PM CST
Name: Christine
North East Texas (Zone 7b)
Shine Your Light!
Heirlooms Native Plants and Wildflowers Organic Gardener Hummingbirder Bee Lover Herbs
Butterflies Dragonflies Birds Cat Lover Dog Lover Garden Photography
Beep beep Hilarious!
May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty and joy of each day --Native American Proverb

Image
Nov 18, 2015 6:03 PM CST
Name: Dnd
SE Michigan (Zone 6a)
Daylilies Dog Lover Houseplants Organic Gardener I helped beta test the first seed swap Celebrating Gardening: 2015
Garden Ideas: Level 2
honk honk!
Image
Nov 18, 2015 6:12 PM CST
Name: Christine
North East Texas (Zone 7b)
Shine Your Light!
Heirlooms Native Plants and Wildflowers Organic Gardener Hummingbirder Bee Lover Herbs
Butterflies Dragonflies Birds Cat Lover Dog Lover Garden Photography
I must be getting good at this, that went fast! Hilarious!
May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty and joy of each day --Native American Proverb

Image
Nov 18, 2015 6:16 PM CST
Name: Dnd
SE Michigan (Zone 6a)
Daylilies Dog Lover Houseplants Organic Gardener I helped beta test the first seed swap Celebrating Gardening: 2015
Garden Ideas: Level 2
wildflowers said:I must be getting good at this, that went fast! Hilarious!


I agree
Image
Nov 18, 2015 6:18 PM CST
Name: Sandy B.
Ford River Twp, Michigan UP (Zone 4b)
(Zone 4b-maybe 5a)
Charter ATP Member Bee Lover Butterflies Birds I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Million Pollinator Garden Challenge
Seed Starter Vegetable Grower Greenhouse Region: United States of America Region: Michigan Enjoys or suffers cold winters
Horntoad said:Come one, Come all to Horntoad's Seed Emporium. Best prices in town on the seed you want. All seeds in stock only 1 ticket while they last.


I'll match Jay's prices, plus offer "satisfaction guaranteed or double your money back" !!
“Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight." ~ Albert Schweitzer
C/F temp conversion
Image
Nov 18, 2015 6:29 PM CST
Name: Ronnie (Veronica)
Southeastern PA (Zone 6b)
Count your blessings, be grateful
Region: Ukraine Organic Gardener Keeps Goats Zinnias Dog Lover Morning Glories
Annuals Bee Lover Dragonflies Butterflies Hummingbirder Birds
Boy do I feel dumb...while on my wish list scrolling by my checked items to get to my next wish I kept thinking there has to be a different way...just realized I could remove my bought wishes by clicking and unstaring them *Blush* Rolling on the floor laughing makes scrolling much faster now Shrug! dare I say I was having a blonde moment Whistling
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Image
Nov 18, 2015 6:30 PM CST
Name: Cinda
Indiana Zone 5b
Dances with Dirt
Beekeeper Bee Lover Overwinters Tender Plants Indoors Cottage Gardener Herbs Wild Plant Hunter
Hummingbirder Butterflies Birds Lover of wildlife (Raccoon badge) Organic Gardener Vegetable Grower
I waited a whole 3 minutes before using my last ticket Whistling Just wanted it to last a bit longer Rolling my eyes.
Do we have a thread for New seeds being added?
..a balanced life is worth pursuit.
Image
Nov 18, 2015 6:37 PM CST
Name: Jennifer
48036 MI (Zone 6b)
Cottage Gardener Houseplants Spiders! Heucheras Frogs and Toads Dahlias
Hummingbirder Sedums Winter Sowing Peonies Region: Michigan Celebrating Gardening: 2015
Blinking Who is "most likely to sucseed?" Rolling on the floor laughing

You must first create a username and login before you can reply to this thread.
  • Started by: dave
  • Replies: 185, views: 6,209
Member Login:

( No account? Join now! )

Today's site banner is by Murky and is called "Ballerina Rose Hybrid"

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.