User avatar
pomerinke
Cool Member
Posts: 95
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 3:26 am
Location: Okinawa, Japan

Seed Trading goodness

I just wanted to share my excitement with everyone. I posted the seeds I had for trade in the local facebook group and I got a great response! I've always loved the idea of gardening, but never really had a good opportunity because I never had the space to do it.

Now that I am, it's amazing to find such a great community of people involved!

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

That's great! I have a coworker who is in her first house, and she wants to start a veggie garden. I have a bit of a hoarding problem in the seed department, considering how little space I have to garden, so I think I'll be dumping a lot of seeds and seedlings on her. Heh heh. Paying it forward!

User avatar
jal_ut
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7447
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:20 pm
Location: Northern Utah Zone 5

I usually buy most of my seed from the local garden store each year. Some of the varieties are hybrids carefully grown under specific circumstances so the crossing can be done right. These seeds from the store usually produce what they are labeled, however I have a couple of times had some that went astray.

I plant several types of squash. If you save some seed from the squash, you never know what you will get as they freely cross and next year you don't know what you will get. Some of the hybrids are good though.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Guilty as charged. I am trying to limit my seed buying because my seed bag is overflowing in the frig. I did throw some of the old seeds away and tested some marginal ones that were actually still good. Seeds are so expensive now that sharing is a good way for everyone to benefit. For some things like squash, and broccoli I only have space for a couple of plants. I have saved seeds as well. I have a lot of mystery seeds at the bottom of the bag that fell out of the packages, only some of which I recognize.

I already ordered some new seeds but I did not order everything yet. I am waiting a bit since I am behind on getting my garden cleaned up and I can only plant so many things in a year.

I will be planting many of the seeds out for the monthly sale at the garden and maybe if I can get the snails population knocked down, I can get some plants growing to donate for my club sale in March.

I don't do facebook, but I can ask my gardening friends if they want to do some seed trading. That would be a good idea for using the extra seeds I have.

While I would like to participate more in seed trading online, the agricultural restrictions make sending seeds to multiple locations a hassle. I have to go down to the dept of ag to get the seeds inspected and package them right there. They have to stamp it and then I can take it to the post office. Some seeds like rape and ung choi are not allowed to be shipped to the mainland and California has a bunch of restrictions. No live plants with soil can be shipped out and some of those are also limited. However, if anyone is living on Oahu, we can meet up for a trade.

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

I never plant mystery seeds we only get 1 garden season per year don't waste it. How well crops do often depends on getting it planted at the correct time. Seeds are easy to save from most crops but you never know how well they will do until you grow a crop from them. It is always best to use seeds you can trust if you value your crops. This year I am limiting my garden to the BIG food producers and high price grocery store vegetables like, tomatoes, zuchinni, beans, corn, melons, peppers, chard, onions, garlic, herbs. Potatoes are $3 for 8 lbs at the grocery store hardly worth growing my own if I could. Melons $5 each at the store. Chard is $4 for 6 leaves at the store it has hardly any food value but makes a good salad. I am cutting back on garden varieties this year need more time to go camping.

User avatar
lakngulf
Greener Thumb
Posts: 1294
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 4:34 pm
Location: Lake Martin, AL

Gary350, what part of Tn? I have a cyber friend on another forum who is great at growing oak and chestnut trees, but wanted to do some tomatoes. I sent him some Cherokee Purple, Brandywine and others.

He is in the Portland, Tn area. Any special Tenn instructions or tips that would be good for him?



Return to “Vegetable Gardening Forum”