I refuse to look, Danita

That's it for today folks. There a a few that I am waiting for addresses or address clarification on, and the two international packages will be mailed tomorrow. I will be taking those into the P.O. along with the other stragglers then and will update accordingly.

Got the notification, so excited!!!!!!!!

Thank you, thank you, Alana! My seed stuff is ready!

Can't wait to get planting!

I looked at my bought and sold list for the two people whose packages did not make it there in time.

@RickCorey , you only had one thing "bought" from me (salvia coccinea). I had nine things selected from you and they were all large seeds (5 packs of beans alone). I really don't think it would be worth the expense to ship those separately, if that is ok with you. I can't imagine you have a burning desire to get that lone packet of salvia!

@MariposaMaid , you only had two packets of goldenrod from me. I had just three packets dibbed from you. I think they are all small light and pretty flat seeds I think. If you still wanted to trade them we may just be able to put them in a regular first class envelope and just use a forever stamp for up to one ounce. I've never tried that, but I know others have. I am totally fine with just not trading them also. It's not like I have a shortage of seed or anything, and there is always next year's swap! I'll leave it up to you.

Anyone have any experience sending small quantities of flat light seed in regular envelopes? Would the sorting machines rip them up with the slightest bulge?

Thanks Alana for the quick turnaround. I could be wintersowing this weekend! It would be a good time to start since we don't have any snow on the ground now. Some years I had to go out and dig a path out to the garden, then clear a large enough area to put my containers down flat on the ground.

Morgan - I don't have experience with **sending** seeds in regular envelopes because I have experience with **receiving** seeds -- pulverized to dust -- that were shipped that way. The seeds padded with paper towels often don't survive. The ones padded with that squishy, spongy packing material have fared somewhat better.

Either way, since I don't want to cause that disappointment for someone else, I spend the extra stamp and use a small bubble envelope

THANKS SO MUCH, Alana, for a great swap! I truly appreciate all your work!
Hope your garden is extra special this year! :D

molanic said: ...
Anyone have any experience sending small quantities of flat light seed in regular envelopes? Would the sorting machines rip them up with the slightest bulge?
...

It will crush them to dust unless they HAPPEN never to go through a big sortation center. Those rollers pinch HARD and the envelopes fly through at huge speeds. Ive gotten FC letters with foam padding, and still the hard seeds DENTED the plastic even where they were not crushed. I tried to create PADDED FC Letters, but the postal clerk rejected them even though she had to tilt her 1/16th" template in order to reject it. (Is it 1/16" or 1/8" max thickness?)

Any slight jam in a sortation machine causes dozens to hundreds of envelopes to be mashed into a dense wad and destroyed. I think it was "hundreds of feet per minute" line speeds.

molanic said: ...
@RickCorey , you only had one thing "bought" from me (salvia coccinea). I had nine things selected from you and they were all large seeds (5 packs of beans alone). I really don't think it would be worth the expense to ship those separately, if that is ok with you. I can't imagine you have a burning desire to get that lone packet of salvia!
...

I won't have time to plant salvia; I seem to have just lost my chance to retire early.

But please, you or anyone: send me your address via TreeMail and I'll get your seeds together as soon as I can and send them. The FC bubble mailer is cheaper than the fixed-rate Priority options and I want to give away some seeds!

I apologize again for joining with good intentions and then losing it.

They did a secret santa on Gardenweb, and most of the ones I received were in regular envelopes with a piece of bubble wrap. I didnt see anything wrong with them, but they all had the non-machine able stamp on them. That may be the way to go. Stamps are like 60 some cents, and I got up to half a dozen small packets at a time.

I mail all my secret santa cards in a regular envelope with 2 pieces of bubble wrap surrounding the seeds.

My post office usually lets them fly for 1 stamp BUT if they don't, I buy the "butterfly stamp". I think it's .66 cents now. It's printed non machinable right on the stamp! I too can fit 6 or 7 packets of small seeds in an envelope if I tape them to a piece of bubble wrap and lay that in the card with a second piece of bubble wrap on top. Again, this only works for small seeds like salvia, poppies, foxgloves or others in that size range. I use a bubble envelope if the seeds are larger.

I have never received damaged seeds in a regular envelope with 2 sides of bubble wrap. I have gotten seeds crushed when 1 side or no bubble wrap is used!

Hmm.

In the past I've sent many seeds in regular envelope (with just one stamp) and depending on the type of seeds with bubble wrap, sometimes with just a foam pad or cardboard. As far as I know, it has never been a problem.

Hopefully I didn't "push the envelope" with the seeds I just sent Alana... I'm a little worried though since they are bigger seeds in a regular envelope.

(Thought I should edit to say I'm talking about one (1) kind of seeds sent to Alana after the swap, not the box of seeds I sent to her for this swap.)

Thanks for the info guys. I've pretty much always just done the large swaps where I am sending 50+ packets and so I've always had to use the first class "package rate". I don't think I've even ever tried the "large envelope rate". I know there was discussions in the past on differences in post offices regarding what is a "large envelope". It had to fit in some slot that was 1/4 " and be of an even thickness and bend a certain amount. Some people's post offices told them that not even empty bubble envelopes could not be sent that method. Oye, what a pain!

I avoid going to the counter at my local post office at all costs based on past experiences. It's like the Bermuda Triangle (or the DMV) in there. I print all my postage at home and only use the self serve kiosk to get stamps and stuff. Even the self serve kiosk is slow and often the self serve package drop off chute is locked or jammed! The building itself also has automated doors and one of the four sets of doors is usually broken, but it's not always the same one! Fast walkers like me have to be careful to avoid an embarrassing face plant. That's probably about enough post office ranting for one day!

It's good to know that there are non-machinable stamps available. I imagine that's what people use on the decorated cards that you get for weddings and stuff like that. I do have some of that thin but dense foam padding. Maybe some of that around the seed packs then taped into a card, with a non-machinable stamp would work well for small seeds?

>> they all had the non-machine able stamp on them.

I asked about that at my post office. Isn't it funny that every postal clerk has a different answer?

I was told that paying for "non-machine-able" really had no effect, because it was easier for "them" to just put them all through the machine anyway. Clearing the jams and throwing away damaged letters was someone else's chore!

Maybe she was wrong, maybe she just wanted to discourage people from doing anything that would have caused her thought or effort.

And she never mentioned a "non-machine-able STAMP" . They could have set up the sorter to check for a "non-machine-able STAMP", and rejected those before getting to the tight, fast rollers.

I knew a software engineer who worked on the early USPS sortation machines. His attitude was that anything that was not flat-like-paper would cause jams that impressed the heck out of him, and destroyed dozens to hundreds of letters each time a jam happened. He didn't actually say that the rollers "could crush gravel", but he thought it was flatly impossible to pad anything so well it would not be crushed, without causing some % of jams.

But obviously some people HAVE managed.

Once I got some seeds in an FC Letter with bubble wrap (maybe just one layer?) and SOME of the bubbles were popped and the rest seemed limp. But that time, the small seeds seemed OK.

I think survvival is variable even IF your letter goes through an automated sortation station.

@ishareflowers , Lisa, Thanks for the "non-machine" butterfly stamp info! I didn't know about it either. I'll have to check about getting a few.

Dan_the_mailman from GW told us a while back that the non-machinable stamp or writing non-machinable and adding the additional postage to cover that really did not mean anything. It all goes through the machines anyway.

I've gotten a lot of crushed seeds, especially in Secret Santa, but never when the seeds were inside two layers of bubble wrap. Putting 1 layer of bubble wrap is not effective, though a lot of people do it.


A package or three should land today. I'm as excited as anyone to see them reach home.

All packages are out except Dash's and he has not provided me his address. If anyone wonders why I don't just use addresses on envelopes, I learned a while ago that I make mistakes that way so I don't do it. An address emailed to me or logged into this swap system is attached to a username. When you have new players and can't make the connection between username and real name and address automatically, it takes a lot of work to sort things out. A few people include both names on their envelopes, most don't.

I want to thank everyone for being so patient and helpful. It always makes me a little uncomfortable when people send extra postage money, but a few of you sent 10 instead of 7 this year. As it happens a couple of issues led to additional expenses and that covered it. For that, I thank you.
And thank you for the camaraderie and shared experience.

Here is a new thread for posting about receiving your seeds, discussing germination and successes and failures. The thread "After The Swap Discussion" in 2nd Annual "Not from the Seed Rack Seed Swap" Any seeds, all members.

I'm "Out for Delivery." I'll update on the new thread when it arrives.

Thank you for all of your work, Alana!

I only trade seeds using bubble envelopes. I've had too many bad experiences receiving crushed seeds in regular envelopes with bubble wrap. Plus, it only saves 47 cents in postage, at most. Tomato seeds seem to be one of the few things that can survive without a proper bubble envelope. Salvia seeds definitely don't travel well in the "2 pieces of bubble wrap in regular envelope" method. If they aren't outright pulverized, then even the intact looking seeds are full of small cracks when you view them under magnification. I think that I may have a crushed pack somewhere that I could photograph. Sad!

I'm "out for delivery" too I'm amazed at how much faster seeds travel when they're coming FROM Alana instead of going TO Alana

again and again Alana. You're a stellar hostess Thanks also for the tip about including our user name to our envelope. 'Makes perfect sense once I see it from your angle.

Mine is "out for delivery" too. Our carrier usually delivers in the late afternoon so I'll be watching out the window!!

Alana!

I'm out for delivery too! Alana and everyone!

Lisa-ishareflowers, thank you for the butterfly stamp info! I'll check into that while I'm at the P.O. today. For me it's not really the extra cost of postage as much as the convenience of just sticking a stamp on it and into the mailbox for pickup.