I hadn't even thought about using it for a group buy, but I can sure see that working.

Greenthumb has been giving this some thought, so hopefully he'll chime in.

@dave Do you like this idea at all (eg, would you be willing to consider developing/implementing it)? Should we start a separate thread to discuss a possible "plant swaps" tool?

I posted on the previous page how I thought a Plant Swap Tool would ease keeping track of swap traffic to and fro. My focus has been on enhancing/facilitating the in-person swap that our Mid-Atlantic group holds twice a year. As an adjunct to these events, here are some modifications of the Seed Swap Tool I envisioned:

Keep "offers"
Eliminate "Quantity/packet"
Eliminate "Source"
Perhaps add some field for cutting/potted/bare root
Don't close "buying"
Assume everyone will be present and eliminate the "Tell the host..." choice and eliminate instruction to ship.

Our regional forum could still have a Discussion thread as this adds a more personal touch and foster members communicating with one another. Whether on this thread or via some other avenue, it would be nice for participants to indicate "Wish" items. I might have 100 or more different plants I could share, but it would be impractical to list them all. Knowing that someone was looking for an obscure species I had would motivate me to offer it.

Yes, we'd definitely still do discussion threads to see what people are looking for, to trumpet the virtues of various plants, etc. Nobody wants to bring 2 dozen plants to a swap and find only one or two people interested. And like you said, I'll often choose what to dig & divide first based on what people seem interested in. :-)

I think the size/type of plant could replace seeds/packet... not sure what makes most sense, seedling/cutting/division, potted/bare root... or maybe big pot / little pot / cutting / bare root ? Of course additional descriptions of size/age of plant can always go in the comments field.

I'd make use of an option to close "buying" (putting in dibs) before swap day (midnight before?), giving people a chance to pack those last-minute dibs. Otherwise, you might have some people continuing to put in dibs on plants while others are driving to the swap.

critterologist said:
I'd make use of an option to close "buying" (putting in dibs) before swap day (midnight before?), giving people a chance to pack those last-minute dibs. Otherwise, you might have some people continuing to put in dibs on plants while others are driving to the swap.

Good point! Maybe like noon the day before; since many people pack up the day before, midnight might be too late

I wonder how customizable the "closing date" could be. Certain plants I offer could be requested the day of (bare roots, fresh cuttings, etc), versus others that need to be divided and potted up the previous weekend.

greenthumb99 said: ...
Our regional forum could still have a Discussion thread as this adds a more personal touch and foster members communicating with one another. Whether on this thread or via some other avenue, it would be nice for participants to indicate "Wish" items. I might have 100 or more different plants I could share, but it would be impractical to list them all. Knowing that someone was looking for an obscure species I had would motivate me to offer it.

I agree that all these help recruit for swaps:

discussion threads
Wish Lists
"I HAVE all these that I WON'T offer them unless someone pre-requests one of them"

If non-members can see the preliminary OFFER lists, that might also stimulate someone to join a swap and then offer more things.

Or, if more people had up-to-date "HAVE" lists ... just personal Have lists, not Swap-related offer-for-this-swap lists, individual members saying "check out my personal Plant List HAVE list - I would offer any of those if specifically requested by someone joining the swap and offering much."

It may be just me but I did not like the 'tickets' and 'calling dibs' on the recent seed swap. Too much like eBay competition getting there first, being too late...rather than a sharing of one's bounty with friends.

I also think that using a Swap Tool should not be a requirement for swap participation.

As to closing out trading pre swap each participant should be able to close their trade list prior to a generally accepted deadline as personal circumstances dictate, like being out of town the week before the swap, etc.

Mariposa, using the "swap tool" definitely isn't a requirement -- anyone can swap seeds in any way they wish.

Thanks Sandy. I really like the tradition of 'passalong plants'

frFrom the book "Passalong Plants" by Steve Bender, Felder Rushing

"Passalongs are plants that have survived in gardens for decades by being handed from one person to another. These botanical heirlooms, such as flowering almond, blackberry lily, and night-blooming cereus, usually can't be found in neighborhood garden centers; about the only way to obtain a passalong plant is to beg a cutting from the fortunate gardener who has one. In this lively and sometimes irreverent book (don't miss the chapter on yard art), Steve Bender and Felder Rushing describe 117 such plants, giving particulars on hardiness, size, uses in the garden, and horticultural requirements. They present this information in the informal, chatty, and sometimes humorous manner that your next-door neighbor might use when giving you a cutting of her treasured Confederate rose. And, of course, because they are discussing passalong plants, they note the best method of sharing each plant with other gardeners. Because you might not spy a banana shrub or sweet pea in your neighborhood, the authors list mail-order sources for the heirloom plants described. They also give tips on how to organize your own plant swap. Although the authors live in and write about the South, many of the plants they discuss will grow elsewhere. from the book 'Amid the clamor of press releases touting the newest, improved versions of this bulb or that perennial, what keeps people interested in old-fashioned plants? Nostalgia, for one thing. It's hard not to feel a special fondness for that Confederate rose, night-blooming ceresis, or astroloemeria lovingly tended by your grandmother when you were a child. Such heirloom plants evoke memories of your first garden, of relatives and neighbors that have since passed on, of prized bushes you accidentally annihilated with your bicycle. Recall the time you first received a particular plant, and you'll recall the person who gave it to you'

https://books.google.com/books...

I'm always a fan of making new features, but I designed this system to be what it is and am not in a hurry to make dramatic changes or to copy it into a new feature with a different purpose. What I'd like to do for the short term is continue to try to use the existing system to accommodate the different uses.

Mariposa, however one lets others know what one has to offer, some will see it before others. The swap tool does not make this reality greater. In fact, since as it is currently set up, a person can only choose one the fist day two the second, etc. which minimizes a single individual from being early and preempting everyone else. Don't see the basis of your concern.

I participated in the Wildflower/Hibiscus Swap and loved the way it worked! Some of the things I did to make things easier for me:
1. Removed my "bought" items after every day (they showed up in my "bought" items list, so there was no need to keep them on my wishlist)
2. Updated my wishlist every day and deleted items that were no longer available
3. Updated my "have" list every day if I had something new to add
4. Kept myself updated on new items by viewing "recent events" rather than going through all the lists again

I hope this may help others if they participate in a swap! Thanks, @dave for a nice system to swap seeds!

Mariposa, the Mid-At swaps have always been about passalong plants. I think at least half of my perennials are from local swaps!

But it's not like the person who is passing along the plants/seeds has an unlimited supply. There has to be a way of distributing them. Limiting the amount that you can request, like greenthumb said, is probably one of the fairer ways of doing it, so that one person who happens to be by the computer doesn't request all of the items at once.

Also, pre-swapping isn't a requirement, and using the ATP tool isn't a requirement. At the seed swap on Sunday, there were boxes and boxes of seed packets to rummage through, and a handful of the participants hadn't even been on ATP at all.

But there are so many of us and so many plants that there has to be some pre-arrangement of passalong plants. Otherwise we spend the entire time swapping and not socializing. And we're a chatty bunch!

I agree, the "dibs" system helps spread the bounty, avoiding any "first come takes all" concerns,

And let me say that using the seed swaps tool was definitely not a requirement to participate in our recent swap... it just provided a convenient way to do some swapping in advance. I'm sorry if you got the wrong idea; I tried to be really clear about that on the info threads. As usual, a large number of seeds changed hands during the event itself. Our MidAtlantic events have never been about 1 for 1 trading... it's more of a seed sharing party! Wish you'd been able to join us Sunday.

Dave, we can try to use the current system for a plant swap, but there will be a lot of extra instructions needed to co-opt the data fields for different uses (like using the seeds per packet space to describe the size/type of plant material). We had enough minor confusions crop up over using the fairly straightforward seed swaps tool that I'm not sure about trying to use it for a plant swap. We'll give it some thought!

thx, SSG -- well said!

That's a good system Froggie.

Greenthumb I guess I got confused because the Mid Atlantic seed swap started trading and then stopped to allow other participants to join in so that when trading resumed some early traders were on day four with multiple dibs while others were on day one with one! Otherwise, the Swap tool did seem easy enough to use and could be adapted to plants....

Thanks SSG and Jill, didn't see your posts until I posted! I'm all for more time to socialize and get to know you all!

That's one change I'd really like to see, a way to add participants once the swap is underway (other than by asking Dave to go in and manually add newcomers). I don't think anybody's dibs counts were that messed up by our halt & restart... I don't recall that anybody came close to using up their dibs after the first couple of days. We'll give it a try for the spring plant swap and see how it goes. I'll have more of a chance to work with it, which will hopefully help me avoid some of the confusions

When you get ready to start your spring swap let me know and I'll ensure the ability to let late-comers join is ready by then.

Thanks, Dave!

MariposaMaid, I'm hosting the spring plant swap (Frederick, MD)... date hasn't been picked yet, but I'll put a thread up soon to figure out the date. I know it's a ways off, but I've got ballet recitals and things to work around LOL.

I had a thought for an option to make the swap more balanced for participants who aren't available to participate during the live swapping portion on any of the days. What if instead of using the star system for our wishlist, we had an ordinal ranking system for the whole list (1,2,3, etc.). Then at the preset time each day, the system took dibs on our behalf based on our lists. Like everyone gets their first choice, then second, and so on. Conflicts could be handled automatically on a fair rotation.

Participants would still have the ability to reorder and edit their wish lists in between the live swap times. I realize people still have the ability to get dibs any time of day already. But, I thought some people might feel like they are missing out by not being able to be present for the swapping frenzy at the start time each day. Perhaps even some unforeseen circumstance... might make them miss the whole swapping portion of the swap.

It worked really well as is for me, but I thought that might be an option for future versions of the system.