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Spectacular 2007 Cottage Garden Seed Swap#3
pagancat, do you treat your aristolocha as an annual?
budbloom, do you bring in your jasmine during the winter?
Wind, I'm going to try to bring it inside this year - I had it as a perennial when I was in Phoenix. The nice thing is that it germinated very easily for me - I've heard it self-seeds, although I've never had it do that. So, out of zone 9, I'm kinda running blind.
Edited to add:
Thanks for the new start, Maggie - isn't cool how enthusiastic everyone is over this?
This message was edited Oct 13, 2007 7:28 AM
I wonder what seeds I'll find out in the garden this weekend... :-)
This swap has been great for lighting a fire under my feet with regard to getting seeds collected *and* sorted/de-chaffed a bit earlier this year. I've even got some label slips made already!
pagon, i leave my jasmine out all winter. it is in a pot under a magnolia tree and seems to weather the winter fine
kathy
Suzy, various members have asked for some of my seeds - as I have asked for some of theirs.
Does it make your job easier if we send requested seed packs premarked with whom they are to be sent? Or should we consider the requests "extras"
What can we do to make your job easier?
Michaela
Critter- it seems there are 2 threads- one is just for an organized haves/wants (for Suzy) and this main thread which is for yakkity smakkity & I think personal requests.
Michaela,
I'd LOVE some of your Sea Holly and Obedience plant, columbine, & cone flower.
Cornflower, agastache, & hollyhocks would be nice too.
Pagancat, you're welcome. I was on dialup long enough to appreciate how long a thread takes to load if you don't have the luxury of dsl.
Regards to all,
Maggie
I'm not sure how so many up north people have nice, dry seeds and I who have an earlier start, have few that are ripe enough to harvest yet. I'll be coming in under the wire!
Maggie
Another question: When theseedsite dot co dot uk does not list the seeds that you're interested in, what's your back up seed resource?
Also, I'm still hoping that someone can give me advice on collecting coreopsis seeds....
That's a good question... I've listed the seed site as a resource in an article I'm currently writing, and I'd love to have an additional link or two to reference.
BTW, that site did just let me figure out that I'd collected seeds from a different plant than the Persian Coneflower (2 plants were intertwined, and I thought the seeds looked like Centaurea seeds... turns out Scabiosa seeds look pretty similar at first glance). I must have grown out those burgundy pincushion flowers last spring, planted them out and forgotten about them until they started blooming in August... they're pretty, but they're not Persian Coneflower!
Here's a link for another resource on seed collecting that I've found helpful
http://www.wintersown.org/wseo1/Specific_Varieties.html
Also, I think part of the reason I have ripe seeds early is that I haven't done any deadheading at all. Most of my plants are new this year and I wanted them to put their energy into roots instead of rebloom.
Thanks -- I'd forgotten that the wintersown site had seed info!
Grampapa, thanks! I'd forgotten about that site and they had what I was looking for (well, except for my redbuds!).
Guess what I'm doing today. My dining room is under siege...
Help - has anyone worked out how 100 small seeds (such as poppies) translates to measurements? Can I guess that that would be about 1/16th of a teaspoon? Counting them out individually is a big fat pain. Where might I find this kind of information? I'll bet someone's got that posted somewhere...
I just measured out about 1/16 tsp. of basil seed and counted 125 seeds in it... I think poppy seeds are smaller still. I've got a good amount of basil seed collected, and I think I'll get lots more unless we have a sudden frost, so I'll probably put 1/8 tsp. into my packets. My packet size gets influenced by supply & demand. If lots of people are interested and I don't have a ton of extra seed, I do small packets (if very small, I let people know that)...
These are actually Evening Primrose seeds and I started using 1/8 tsp as a measurement; I figured that would be far more than 100 seeds and since I've got plenty to go around, I should easily be able to make up ten packs. For anyone interested, these seeds are from a plant that I bought from the belated Flower Scent Gardens.
I love that rich red on your walls!
Yes, I've collected more seeds, but I haven't started packing. I need to go buy those little envies.. Do you get them at a office Max or Office Depot type store? What about the liitle ones made from wax paper? Do you all order those ones?
I've seen the super nice attached sticky labels some of you do and a trader told me she downloads the templates and does it herself from http://www.avery.com/ , but I just couldn't get it to work right for me.. So I was thinking of trial and error about getting the size right to fit the envelope and just using tape?
Any ideas?
Susan
Paper coin envelopes are from Office Max or similar office supply store
Wax paper bags are what I've started using for collecting seeds. I get them at my organic grocery store, but any place that carries eco-friendly goods ought to have them
I also use sticky labels w/ the computer, however, I'm not using them in this swap. Good ol' ballpoint pen this time around...
Thanks, RE: the red walls. It's definitely not everyone's cuppa cha, however I love it - especially during the holidays, with lots of candles flickering....
Eek! No, but thanks, G6, I'll go look for it!
I get the little plastic zip-top bags at WalMart (in the crafts department, usually located way below eye level LOL), 100 for 99 cents. I used to do sticky labels, but sometimes they fell off, so I switched to paper slips inserted into the clear seed baggies. I still use a label template (don't recall the Avery number, but it has 3 columns, with 7 labels in a column), but I just print them onto normal paper and cut them apart. The template gives me plenty of room for the name/ht/color info, plus I usually add a descriptive line or two. If I've successfully wintersowed the seed, I also note that on the label.
For example, here's what was on my label for the basil (on the actual label,I've used different sized fonts, italics for the description, and it's neatly centered). I didn't use the latin name on this label because I was trying to save some space for the description -- and I figured everybody knew this plant as "basil" not as "Ocimum basilicum"
BASIL, Italian Genovese
Vigorous upright plant with large crinkled leaves.
Seeds orig. from packet a friend found in Italy.
Pinch often to promote branching & for best flavor. Annual.
DG critterologist 2006
And here's my label for the plant that's Not Chocolate Daisy:
Too Tall to Be Chocolate Daisy
Helianthus, unk. perennial type
Yellow blooms all summer, 24-30”,
butterfly magnet, full sun. Blooms
first year from wintersown seed.
DG critterologist 2007
Lovely! Thank you! :)
For those interested in my Standing Cypress seeds, it looks like I will have very limited amounts of seeds, so would you mind if I skimped a bit on the packets in order to try to ensure that as many people get some as possible? Or not so much?
This is a great plant for hummingbirds, butterflies, etc. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/62372/
speaking of hummingbirds...I just saw one sitting on a rose branch near to a patch of blooming blue salvia...I've never seen one this late around here!!!!!!!!!!! It is pretty chilly too
omg, it seems way too late for a hummer to be this far north.
I guess my feeders had better not come down this weekend after all.... although the only critters I've seen supping at them since we got back this week have been wasps.
We keep our feeders up year round for your northern friends that visit during the winter.. I feed some of them for you! :)
How embarrassing -- I didn't know the party had moved!
Michaela, I thought it was going to be really, really scary, trying to figure out who the seeds go to, but it's not. So far I've had somebody tape some slips of paper "to grampapa" to their seed packs and it worked fine. Critter was talking about putting them in little baggies, and that would be fine, too. Just somehting that will make it stand out from the other ones you're sending is all I need.
So far, I must say I don't see what the big deal is about hosting a swap. Oh, wait, maybe I need to wait until the seeds come in before I start spouting off ROTFL!
Suzy
LOL... it might get trickier once all those "want" lists start coming in... like those "packing problems" on standardized tests... you know... "You have 90 jars of jams to package in groups of three. There are 5 flavors. Strawberry must be in every pack. Grape cannot touch Orange Marmalade. Cherry and Blackberry cannot be in the same pack. If you include Orange Marmalade, Cherry must be in the same pack... etc."
OMgoodness Don't scare her! :)
I think we're all really excited about this swap, and everybody's going to get loads of wonderful seeds from it, so I don't think anybody is going to be too picky or exacting about their wish list... remember that your wish list is just to give Suzy an idea of how to make you really happy, it's not a shopping list or an order form! :-)
And yes, I'm planning to mark my seed packets for particular people on the back side (so it'll stand out from the label -- no confusion), and then I'll put all the seeds that are going to specific people in a baggie to separate them from the other seed packets for easier sorting. It'll sound less complicated when you have my seeds in hand! LOL
Yes, I am going to put in a separate baggy too and mark the name to make it easier for Suzy too. :)
That's really what the cans are for. I'll sit on the sofa and sort of toss them -- carnival game style. Whoever's can it lands in, gets the pack. Oh, and if I miss a can, I get whatever falls on the table....I'd better spread those things a little farther apart. bwa - ha - ha!
Suzy
Nice strategery!
My seeds are going out tomorrow. I've about given up on waiting for a couple of plants to be ready, but I did get another couple from my Mom. If the others make it in time, I will go ahead and send them seperately.
I'll likely ship mine on Tuesday.
I've got a job interview tomorrow so will probably be too preoccupied to even think about anything else. Wish me luck, please. I really need to get out of the negative pit of gloom of a JOB that I find myself in now. lol.
This message was edited Oct 15, 2007 10:13 AM
No, no! No pit of gloom! What can we do to get you more enthused about your interview? Maybe you need a nice afternoon cup of tea, sitting on your lovely little garden patio, enjoying this sunny, breezy fall day... imagining where you'll place all your new cottage garden plants!
Whoa, big misunderstanding! lol ... my ***current job*** (the one that I'm on medical leave from) is a burning pit of gloom, so I am utterly thoroughly completely and totally enthused about any and all interviews! ... and as a matter of fact, I just fixed myself a cuppa PG Tips. Hooray!
Since my surgery, I have received on average, two phone calls/week from co-workers because they needed to VENT about how upset they are by how things have nose-dived there. We used to love to work there. I've been with the co. for nine years, but am eager to leave. At least six people have quit while I've been on leave. UGH. Time for a change.
Shew, thanks for the clarification! I was worried!