1. This time worked as well for me as any one time could.
2. Length of trading doesn't matter, unless you can make it SO long that there are weeks during which people could wish, I could hunt my stash for days or weeks, and then more wishes could go 'round. I think there "should" be at least 2-3 days AFTER the number of tickets given out has exceeded my appetites. I'm not sure why, but then I feel comfortable that I've searched the entire swap list, with updates, "enough".
I need weeks to months to
prepare: buy seeds, split them count packets, hunt the stash, and type data into Dave's tool.
For packing, one week is just barely enough. The panic-fear of being late drives me to get it done ASAP.
3. I would really enjoy a crazy one-day swap where new tickets come out every (??) 5-15 minutes. But there, too, we need time BEFORE the swap to get all our stars on the right entries.
(Maybe that "fast swap" needs some last-minute feature where, if you are NOT going to be in front of the computer on the Swap Day, or the Swap Hour, you can still drop out and the other members can adjust their Wishing Stars.
A "fast swap" would have to issue new "tickets" every 5-10 minutes. And maybe the "increase" should not be 3-6-12-24-48, or whatever. ("times 2 each time" goes up too fast after 3-4 times)
Maybe 3-6-9-12-15-18- etc (+ 3 each time)
My idea for that was that you wouldn't even have to get up from the keyboard during the swap. It could all be over in 30-60 minutes. You might even make the "new tickets" almost continuous, like "+2 tickets every 1 minutes"
Aww, that won't work! The "all-at-once" rule will sure make it a FASTER fast swap! Done that way, we really WOULDN'T need to get up from our keyboards!
This one-day-swap with all-tickets-given at-once approaches the "instantaneous swap" idea, where all that matters is the start time, and how many stars you put on each item. The software would automatically resolve every five-star dib first, with some random element to resolve ties. Then the software would resolve every four-star-dib. etc. It could probably conduct the entire swap in half a second, taking too much fun out of it!
DogsNDaylilies said: ... For those of you suggesting winter as best for the swap (and concerned about time to prepare for it), I welcome suggestions. When I hosted the swap in January, a lot of people were just coming off of the holidays and cited being busy from the holidays and not fully organized and prepared for the swap in January. Others have said that February is too late, particularly for southern gardeners. It doesn't sound like we'll please everyone, but the more input I receive, the better able I am to please as many as possible. ...
>> It doesn't sound like we'll please everyone,
That's what I agree with most. Everyone is different, and one-size-fits-one, not one-size-fits-all.
For me at the moment, "December is 100% booked already, then I'm recovering for some weeks or months".
It's also a popular time to be depressed!
But I bet that, once I've retired and gone crazy with seed-saving schemes, that fall gardening and seed-saving will keep me very busy around this time of year and December won't be so bad.
Also, for me right now, "swaps should not start until after year-end-seed-sales". But that would push them into the year-end Holiday season, which I would hate. And, this way, I "have to" hunt through seed catalogs before the year-end sales are well underway. And that gives me an excuse to hit the online sales (again) when they come along! And that will "make me" look for another swap to share the year-end-seeds with.
Even when it's only one person, and I am that person, I can't pick a time that would work best for me!
So don't pick times based on me! This time has worked the best of any so far.
I'll join as many swaps as I can. In my ideal world, there would be an August/Sept swap, AND an Oct/Early Dec swap, AND a Jan/Feb swap. But then, each swap would probably have fewer people, since for some reason that puzzles me, not everyone wants to spend a lot of their free time in seed swaps.
After retiring, I'll do my part and host some swaps in-between other swaps. But there might be some excessive number of swaps, that would exceed the enthusiasm of the number of people who like to swap seeds. (Until NGA starts attracting hundreds of people who wish they could find a good local seed library.)
BTW, my main concern with "timing" is only one thing: getting my seeds packaged and mailed before the due date. Because things can come up, especially at work and especially in December, (and I used to lose seeds that I had "set aside" for a swap {*} ), I think of one week as "barely enough to be sure I won't embarrass myself again". But I think I'm the only one that finds the packing phase stressful, so don't change times for me.
I split store-bought seeds soon after receiving them.
I dry my own seeds as long as I possibly can, then split at least some into trade-size packs long in advance of any swap.
But most seeds that I CAN split are summer or early fall seeds. After The Fall Rains start, there is no seed saving. Until I build tall hoop-rain-guards. After I retire!
Don't base timing on me!
{*}
This year, again, I misplaced the entire "swap box" and was confused to find so many seed packets smaller and older than my notes said.
DUH!
Yes they WERE smaller and older. When almost finished and searching hard for ONE specific Bok Choy, I finally found the "swap box". It was behind my living room chair, in the most prominent spot possible short of making me climb over it every time I went from room to room. But what idiot would store seeds in the middle of the living room? Not even I thoguht to look there.
Every single time I set some seeds aside "so I can't possibly lose them", the very FIRST thing I do is lose them!
