CLOSED: Come join us! 3rd Annual Tomato & Pepper Seed Exchange

Hi everyone,

I am hosting another Tomato and Pepper seed swap that will include members from a few different forums. I wanted to post this a bit early so you had time to collect seeds or place an order.

Here are the guidelines we will follow for this swap (Note - they differ slightly from last year):

1) Seeds must be received by me no later than November 15th, so I recommend you mail your envelope no later than November 1. Please note that I live in Canada.

You can send "named varieties" of tomatoes or peppers (or both). Do not include mixes or seeds labeled "granny's mystery mix" or unnamed bell peppers or anything like that. I cannot, in fairness, send mixed or unknown packs of seed back to people that followed the instructions and only sent in "named varieties".

If you are sending hybrid seeds to exchange, only F1 seeds from a commercial source are acceptable. Do not send in seeds you have collected from a hybrid plant. They will not grow true to the original parent plant. If you are unsure if the seed you have collected is from a hybrid, please do your research online before mailing in your seeds.

2) A minimum of 10 seeds per packet. A maximum of 5 packets of the same seed. An overall maximum of 40 packets per person.

Please ensure seed packets are clearly marked with the name, and whether they are heirloom, OP (Open Pollinated), or F1 hybrid seeds. If you are sending pepper seeds, it would help me a great deal with sorting if you could indicate on the packages if the peppers are sweet or hot as many individuals in the last swap had clear preferences. If seeds are from a commercial source, please note that as well.

3) If you send tomato seeds, you will receive tomato seeds in return. The same idea for peppers, unless you include a note indicating you want something different in return. You can also send in tomato seeds and ask for pepper seeds in return or visa versa, or any combination. I fully expect a large variety and volume of seed types to be able to accommodate this.

4) Please include a list of what you are sending, your wish list and if there are any seeds you do not want to receive. It is very important to take the time to write out a list of what you are sending, otherwise I have to do it for you and I do not have time for that. If you are only interested in heirloom or OP, please tell me that as well. I will try my best to accommodate your wish list, but there are no guarantees of course. The variety will be completely dependent on what is sent in. In last year's swap, we were able to fill many items on people's wish lists so please take the time to prepare one - it will be worth your while.

5) You will need to mail your seeds inside a bubble envelope with a return label inside, along with the correct amount of return postage. I will reuse your original bubble envelope to send your surprise seeds back to you. Return postage rates are as follows:

* If you live in Canada - $1.22 return postage stamps
* If you live in the US - $2.10 (CAD or US$) (includes tax)
* If you live outside Canada and US - $4.20 (CAD or US$) (includes tax)

All postage rates can be verified on the Canada Post website. For those outside of Canada, you will need to send enough funds to pay for return postage. You can either send concealed cash in the envelope or you could submit payment for postage via Paypal. Please DO NOT send stamps from your country. They will not work here in Canada :)

It's important that you send a regular bubble envelope and not the heavy cardboard insulated type. Weight restriction in this price category is 100g.

6) If you change your mind after registering, and no longer wish to participate, PLEASE notify me immediately so we do not delay the swap waiting for your seeds to arrive. This will also save me a great deal of time trying to follow up and track people down.

7) I will d-email you privately with my mailing address once you have posted here to sign up for this swap. My address can also be found in the DG address exchange.

Any questions. Please let me know. Let's have fun exchanging seeds !!!!

Thanks……Heather

Sounds great please count me in.
Lisa

Please count me in, too.
Denise

I'll play. I have some seeds fermenting now. Should be dried by the end of the week.

Good timing. I'm just harvesting some of the good stuff I received last year. I'll be happy to participate again.

Welcome everybody. We're off to a good start and have 23 signed up in the first day !!! I've sent everyone a private d-mail with further instructions. Looking forward to another fun exchange.

....Heather

I am very happy to participate again this year! count me in too.

Yay! I have been looking forward to this, Heather! Count me in, and thank you for being an awesome seed swap organizer!

Sounds great, count me in too.

Me,too,please!

I think that you have counted me because I replied to your E-mail.
Caroline

I'm interested. Sounds like fun!
Karen

Glad you can join us everyone. This is shaping up to be a huge exchange. We've only been taking signups for a couple of days and we have 55 registered so far. Many more to come I'm sure.

I've sent everyone a private d-mail with further information. Please let me know if you have any questions.

By the way...I was asked if there's any minimum seed count to participate. Definitely not. Everyone has to start somewhere and even if you only have a couple of seed packs to send in, it will be worth your while. This exchange is a great way to expand your collection.

Thanks.....Heather

Hi Heather,
Please add me to your list as well this year. Thank you for doing this again. I am so enjoying the harvests from some of last year's seeds I got in the exchange.
This year I will have to send only be able to send commercial heirloom seed as I have been away a total of 6 weeks out of this summer so never had a chance to bag them when they started to flower and it is too late in the season now. Anything I bag probably wouldn't ripen in time here. I had even bought all the material to bag them! Well next year is another one.

Jessica

I have decided to remove myself from this swap - as detailed in my e-mail to you.

Sounds like a wonderful trade though, and I am so impressed that you are willing to take on such a challenge!

Have fun everyone!!!

Thanks to our most gracious hostess, I'm back in, and thrilled to be here.

Welcome back Sequee !!!!

~:-)

You are most accommodating!

Glad whatever it was has worked out Sequee and that you're back!!!

Heather is the most wonderful hostess!

I just didn't want to burden Heather with extra work, but she poopoo'd the thought of it! LOL!

Bless her - I get to play, too! (Said with a cackle and a gleam in my eyes!)

I will be needing determinate varieties. Are there many and do they come in yellow and orange also? I am having to scale back to square foot and container gardening. Tried the indeterminate maters in the containers and it was a mess.

Not alot of them, but there are some.

Hi Heather - I would love to be a part of your seed exchange if possible. Thanks, Nancy

i would love to help with this!

We're up to 64 participants so far. If you've been lurking and a little shy about joining in....come on..join in the fun...you know you want to !!! :)

I can't believe you are taking this on Heather. You must be much more organized then me, but thank you.

I'm doing the "scale of Justice" thing... Organized/Nuts, Organized/Nuts, Organized/Nuts! Joking, of course! I am totally in awe. I've seen swaps half this side reduce the organizers to tears, and have lived in fear of doing one myself. One year of hosting a Secret Santa swap was enough for me!

Blessings to you with a more solid constitution, that we may have such fun. I'm already making my lists and packing my seeds, though!

You're not far off...I'm definitely half organized and more than half nuts.
I've got a pretty good system set up to manage it all...lots of spreadsheets...so it makes it much much easier.

I have lots of fun doing this as well.

I think the distributing is definitely the fun part - what I hate most of all is packaging the seeds. That's why I pretty much stopped doing multiple trades. I get tense and it kind of sucks the fun out of it. This is cool, though, because we have so much time to get it done. If I start getting crazy, I can stop and come back to it tomorrow or next week, even!

And all this time to anticipate! Better'n Christmas!!!

I like allowing lots of time for the exchange as well. It allows for a lot more people to join and I get seeds in the mail at a fairly steady pace. So I can take my time sorting and recording a few envelopes at a time.
It seems to go pretty smoothly....so far (fingers crossed).

Aw, OK! I have a few treasures to share. Please let me know the particulars and I will construct my list as well as pack some seeds.

~ Evelyn

EG-what tomato is that?

hi - It's great of you to volunteer to do this and you can count me in as well.

Evelyn, is that OSU Blue?

OSU Blue 8/31/10

And how do they taste???

Surprisingly not that bad, I have tasted much worse. I heard that they did not taste good at all so I was expecting a real spitter! I have been adding them with others in my salsa and also my tomato and cucumber salads, but if I want a tomato sandwich I would probably not pick that one when I have so many other big heirlooms out there just hollering for the mayo. LOL

Fair enough! Sounds like the Paris Hilton of tomatoes! Great when you want a good presentation, but not worthy of a stand-alone!

Ok - I admit it...I will try it!

O.K I have never ever done a swap of this type but I think I might want to try this one if you guys will have me, I have saved lots of tomato and pepper seeds this summer.

I'm in...with both peppers and tomato seeds.

Lisa and Patti ~ Yes it is OSU Blue. One bush did not get the same coloring so I have emailed the person to see if they are the original seeds or ones she saved from them, as they may not come true from seed.