I'd be interested Duane

I would be interested your game, Duane.

Duane, that sounds grand.

What are your fav sites for buying seeds?

Last year was my first ordering but I was very pleased with Victory, Chiltern and Seedaholic.

Plant World Seeds, Gardens North, and J. L. Hudson are good too.

I order from JL Hudson and Fedco every year and also like Geoseeds. Everwilde is reasonable and has some interesting things.Thinking of trying Alplains this year. Does anyone have any experience with them?

Alplains is about my favorite

Can anyone tell me how to find out if any of MY seeds are on anyone's wish list? it seems like at the time to trade I find out who wants my seeds, but then it is too late if no one wants my seeds. I am beginning to wonder if as a new swapper I don't have the kind of seeds everyone wants even though I see all sorts of seeds that I want. I watched the video and it seems that it is not how many seeds you have to trade that counts, but the bids you get on your seeds. It looks like I may not have many tokens to bid with! And it looks like my wish list is longer than my offerings!
Then I have read the wish lists of others and wonder if I am supposed to buy those seeds? Everyone is talking about seed companies and I feel like I am out in right field. I may have joined for the wrong reason; I am frugal. : I have spent a lot of time counting, collecting, and packing and maybe I have the cart before the horse. Today I shopped one store where seeds were on sale and went with a grocery list of some of the flowers swappers wanted. And I bought some vegetable seeds since I ATE the few veggies I grew, seeds and all.
I am having fun and learning a lot, though. When realized that a few of the flowers in my yard were on the WANTED list, I suddenly wished they would dry up and that I had not dead headed them. These were the same flowers I could hardly wait to see bloom and visit every day. I also asked a relative, whom I gave Dahlia bulbs to for Easter, if she would check if any of the heads were dry so I could have the seeds! That sort of is like taking back the gift. This all started from getting the newsletter my friend told me about in May, believe it or not.

@Samlav
For seeing if your offerings are on people's wish lists, try this:

* Go to the main page for this swap;
* Click on "Access the full tradelist for this swap;
* In the upper left corner, in the "View items only from:" field, click the drop down arrow and choose your own user name;
* Click the "Update view" button.

When the page reloads, you will see the items you're offering as well as the number of participants who've wish listed each item. Keep in mind, some of us might wish list more items than we can (should?) dib

Yeah, that would be me. I think i have a couple hundred wishlisted. But in my defense, I just tag anything that looks interesting. By the time the swap comes around i might have changed my mind.

Samlav, I'm the same as you. I do swaps because its a good way to get lots of different things that I would never get otherwise. Last year was my first year and I only had a few commercial packs to offer. The rest were from swaps or ones I got for postage. But I made a note of what was popular last year, and this year I kept an eye out for those. Hopefully whoever wanted them last year still wants them, if not I'll either trade them later or plant them myself. But I would say it's not necessary to buy things on someone's wishlist.

Agree with you all. Both my wish list and offerings are sort of a work in progress. I'm still collecting some seed so I have only offered what I think I've collected enough to share...and I've added a couple over the last week or so and hope to add one or two more and then fill in the quantities later this month. On the wish list side, like @okieheart I am tagging things that look interesting and then a couple of days before the swap, I'll do my whittling down and prioritizing.

Also like you @samlav, my personal preference is share/trade seeds versus buy them. There's some risks there too but I like the thought of sharing with my (virtual) neighbors...doesn't mean I've never ever bought any seeds nor judge those that do, but that's why this swap idea is pretty cool to me and I'm surprised how excited I am (even though sometimes I wonder how I'm going to plant/keep track of all them!) I'm also learning a lot too in what others' like and maybe that will help me for future swaps.

Purely my personal opinion, but biying seed is for those gardeners who actually want to grow specific plants. Not for people like me, who look at plants and go "ooh pretty, let's try that!" Every now and then I'll buy seeds, either because the price is awesome (Dollar General clearance rack for 2 cents) or because I want that specific plant. Otherwise, I'm just as happy growing whatever I get.

Samlav,
First of all, it's called "Not from the Seed Rack Seed Swap" so I assume the primary emphasis would be seeds you or someone else has harvested. I have no problem with commercially bought seeds either though. I'm frugal as well. My thought in joining was that I could get several different varieties of seeds for what I would spend on a couple of seed packets or even one clearance plant. It seems to me for the price of admission, there's really no way to lose. I get to share my excess seeds with others and vice versa.

Second of all, I would imagine everyone's wish list is longer than their offering list. I have over 200 on my wish list and 60 on my offering list. While I'm interested in all those, I know I won't get a lot of them. Several of yours are on my wish list. I think you've got a pretty good list going. I look at my seeds to see if anyone has added them to their wish lists but have no idea if they put one star or five.

I think it's going to be lots of fun. And in the end will be much cheaper than smaller individual trades on other sites. That's just my two cents worth and since I'm frugal too, that's about all I'm willing to spare!

Samlav,
I'm frugal too! Some swaps are about getting an equal return. This one is more about sharing, but in a slightly controlled way. You put in what you have and can get as much as you get tickets for, but there is a kind of reward for having a lot of seeds offered.

The swap will open for trading on the same day at the same time for everyone. When it opens, most of us (not all because a few people will always have a scheduling conflict) will be sitting with our wish lists open because that is the easiest page to work from. At precisely 8:00 pm eastern a treasure chest will appear for every seed offered. That treasure chest is where you click to try to buy that seed, first come first served until that person is out of that offering. Each person will get 4 tickets at the same time and will scramble to get "dibs" on the things they want. That's why having an ordered wish list is important. You can go straight down the list in order of preference. You likely will not get all of your top four, but you should get some of them. The next night the number of tickets will be 8, the next 12, the next 16 and so on. That's 114 tickets, I think. Many people don't spend them all but they are spaced out so each day you have more tickets while the catalog is getting smaller.

People earn extra tickets that they can use as soon as they earn them. The first night people will receive an extra ticket every time two of their items are sold. The next night it takes about 3 sold items to earn an extra ticket and decreases every night. In effect, people who have and are willing to put up a lot of popular seeds get rewarded with extra tickets, but that does not diminish the number of great seeds you can get even with a few entries. At opening each night every person starts out with the same chance of landing their favorites. The competition makes it kind of fun, and if you miss out on something and put it on your wishlist sometimes people will scrape up a seed or two of that item to gift you with when the swap is over.

All of that ticketing and treasure-chesting and rewarding is fully automated. It's magic and Dave is the magician. Dave set it up to be ultra easy once the trading starts and you will be able to see everything you have "purchased" in your swap dashboard.

I buy seeds, I save and trade for seeds, and I am always looking for something specific. Saved or purchased does not matter. I know what I want and I'll happily take it either way. I've purchased commercial seeds every year that are incorrectly labeled in some way, so there is no assurance either way. Gardeners make the occasional packaging mistake but so do the big guys.

In other words, you're fine. It all works out.

I just realized I should have clarified about the wishlists. The wishlist in the dashboard is for recording what you want to dib for in the swap. When I mentioned that some people look at wish lists to add an extra seed or two for someone's packet at the end of the swap I was referring to the wish list thread. Many of us look there to see if we have anything to offer from people's lists, and also check there to see if someone missed out on a seed that they have an odd seed or three lying around, but not enough for another offer. If they do, they will often send those as a gift.

The thread "Wish Lists" in 3rd Annual Not From the Seed Rack Seed Swap

Swappers, KarenHolt had to withdraw and did not have time to remove herself from the swap. Several of her items have been wishlisted but they will not be available, at least not from Karen. @Dave, if you could remove her, that would be helpful.

@MrsBInWY I loved the step by step directions to wish list.
@okieheart I am not sure what you meant by "ones you got from postage". It was a good suggestion to make a note of popular wished seeds! I will start that.
@ricelg I agree it is going to be a challenge to plant at the right time and keep track of them. I experimented with seeds one year and promised my neighbor perennial salvia and when the sprouts came up I planted them for her in her yard and mine, but when they matured, we both had Johnny Jump Ups which wwerethe other part of my experiment she is still very happy with them, but in my yard they naturalize everywhere. I learned to cover seedlings so they don't wash away in the rain, label better, and look up what the seedlings look like if you throw away the packet.
@RHarbison Your thoughts were great positive points. I bought seeds yesterday at a great discount that totaled the price of admission. As for stars on the wish list, I think they would change by bid day anyway. I have even been changing mine. But after reading comments I will whittle down later.
@poisondartfrog Oh it was so helpful to hear ticket distribution explanation and about sending someone a gift. The wish list link was nice, too. I took notes since I am still not up to par at navigating on the site.

Samlav said:
@okieheart I am not sure what you meant by "ones you got from postage". It was a good suggestion to make a note of popular wished seeds! I will start that.

Right now, I have a lot of okra seeds, more than I could plant. But you don't have anything to trade, or you don't have anything I want. So I might offer to give them to you if you'll send me money for postage. Sometimes you'll see it listed as SASE (self addressed stamped envelope).

poisondartfrog said:Swappers, KarenHolt had to withdraw and did not have time to remove herself from the swap. Several of her items have been wishlisted but they will not be available, at least not from Karen. @Dave, if you could remove her, that would be helpful.

That's too bad! I hope everything's okay.

okieheart said:
...if you'll send me money for postage. Sometimes you'll see it listed as SASE (self addressed stamped envelope).

Can we send 'gifts' in with our swap packages or would we need to mail them out to the individuals?