Specialty Gardening: tcs1366 picture (Cottage Garden Seed Swap & Chat #17, 1 by bluespiral

bluespiral wrote:
We came from here - http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/905956/

Hope it's alright I commandeered Ms. Piggy here - I was afraid starting discussion about our swap might not fit into the too-long-for-my-slow-dialup, sooooooooo -

Regarding our next swaps, I'm thinking we could do two like we did before:
--- an earlier Dec '08 swap that would be convenient for those with limited cold periods for winter sowings like southerners (including the Ike & Gustav survivors), and

--- For a later Feb '09 swap, perhaps Suzy will be back with us and rarin' to go?

The suggested version of Suzy's swap rules is one that became the "tried and true" one, so how about we use it for the coming December swap for now? I'd like to use the link Starlight gave here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/801335/ . What I post at first will just be a hypothetical set of rules until we get it like we want it.

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Another suggestion I have is that I start the December '08 swap with the first post being reserved for the swap rules, which I'll modify and update as folks dmail me their suggestions (I might miss suggestions if they don't get dmailed to me). And then, let's reserve the 2nd post for Starlight, from which she'll "rule the roost" lol. After those first two posts, discussion can begin.
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The piggy theme was cute - does everyone want to stay with that or try something different this next go-round? Let me know so I can start the swap thread with a theme in our *rules box* at the beginning. Y'all wait for Starlight to claim her spot in the 2nd post for running the show.
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Following are a few suggestions I'd like to get some feedback on, so I can keep the rule box relevant:

1. At the beginning of the rule box, would it be okay to put:
*************
Survivors of Gustav and Ike: you don't have to have any seeds to participate with - just let us know wacha would like to have :)
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???

2. Number of participants - shall we do what Suzy did last year and set a limit of 20 (or whatever) and then welcome any late comers?

3. If participants don't have any seed (or as much as they may wish) to trade with, they might like to consider buying some to trade with. A few inexpensive sources I know about are:

--- http://www.valueseeds.com/ (an outlet for Thompson & Morgan with seeds going for around 49¢ to 99¢ (¢ = 155 + alt and Number Lock on))

--- http://www.superseeds.com/ (Pinetree - pretty good selection at very low prices - expect not too many seeds at low prices, but sometimes they do all right. They let you know how many seeds each packet has. Their vegie seed selection is so large, that there are many ornamental vegies that would fit among flowers beautifully - like that deeply ruffled, black-toned maroon-leaved kale 'Redbor'.

--- http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/ - (J. L. Hudson) - Hudson sells seed in bulk (in addition to regular catalog prices), and some kinds of bulk seeds give you quite a bit of mileage for the money. My suggestion here is that if you'd like to try this option, that you post on the swap thread to see if anyone would be interested - maybe we could avoid duplications and save $ at the same time. A few I recall that have been popular in the past and that are inexpensive are fragrant ones like mignonette (Reseda), evening stock (Mathiola bicornis) or moonflower (Ipomoea alba). A great herb to grow among the flowers that Hudson now has in bulk are various kinds of basil (Ocimum), and little gems to tuck in here and there could be something like Brachycome iberidifolia. There are cottage garden classics like hollyhocks (Alcea), bellflowers (Campanula), snapdragons, pot marigolds (Calendula), China asters (Callistephus) - y'all get the idea. Why not look through Hudson's bulk list and perhaps as a group we could obtain quite a variety at low cost?
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There's probably other considerations I haven't thought of, so everyone please let me know wacha thinkin.

Karen

This message was edited Oct 21, 2008 12:12 AM