Serendipity Seed Swap! (US)

Sharing Seeds
1011

I sorta considered posting all that on the first post, but I decided not to, because:

  1. I could easily be wrong about a lot of things,
  2. Dynamics can easily shift over time,
  3. They probably will shift merely because I mentioned my observations this time, and
  4. There’s an awful lot of text up there already! :laughing: I’d rather it not become TL;DR for new folks. :winking_face_with_tongue:

I agree that it’s wonderful that many people have gained so much experience that they are ready to think in terms of optimization and how to make things even better. That will make our community richer. :blush:

I also think it’s important for there to always be space for beginners who don’t really know what they’re doing, but they want to try, and they want to learn.

Usually beginners have very little value to contribute, and if they are allowed to receive a lot of value sooner, they tend to grow to become experts who have equal (and then eventually excess) value to contribute more quickly. The quicker beginners are able to grow, the more beginners a community can take in and help to grow faster. It’s a beautiful cycle. :blush:

Because I know how beginners work, I’m not worried about people contributing suboptimal things if that’s all they have to contribute right now. They’re doing what they can, and I’m grateful for every contribution people choose to make. Whenever there are excess seeds of low value, I can move those to another context where they will be considered high value. (There’s a seed library at my local library that often runs out of seeds, for instance — I think there are many brand new gardeners visiting it who are joyful to receive any seeds.)

I am thrilled if people who have received the box multiple times are starting to think in terms of, “How can I contribute the most value for the least postage cost?” That’s fantastic! I try to do that, too. :blush:

I’m all for thinking in terms of optimization and efficiency, when you’re at a level where you can. I’m also all for beginners feeling welcome to just do whatever they can and not worry about it. (After all, a beginner might very well contribute something that they think is low value, only for it to actually be a treasure that an expert will be squealing with joy over! :grin:)

I think a community is most resilient when everyone feels welcome to contribute in whatever ways make the most sense to them. So that’s what I try to do, and encourage other people to do, too. If we all try to fill whatever gap seems to stand out to us, usually all the needs will get filled eventually.

By the way, I’m starting to think my assessment of herbs as a category that goes slowly may have been incorrect, given how many people have now jumped in to say that they like them — so, see? I told you I can easily be wrong! :rofl:

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1012

They probably go more slowly because people assume “hey, if I like this, others might as well. I should probably limit what I take.”

I know if I really want all of something, I’m less likely to take more than a few.

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1013

I still check this thread as if I’m coming up soon in the list… :joy: I’m not even currently ON the list! :rofl:

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1014

Do you want to be on the list? :joy:

And yeah, @Lauren, that’s exactly why I think patterns are likely to change just by my mentioning what I’ve observed. People here are nice, and want to make sure there’s enough of anything nifty to go around! :blush:

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1015

Shhh! Boyfriend might hear and lock me up! :joy:

But really, no I’m holding out until at least mid summer. I need to grow alot. My seed stash is currently filling a 58 qt/55 liter tote…. :face_with_peeking_eye::rofl:

I’m going to pare down some things specifically to put into it next round though. Especially tomatoes. Keep like 10 seeds as back up for some varieties and pass on the rest. I have so much interesting stuff that some of my earlier variety interests are less interesting now. Plus I’m hoping to do alot of hand crossing and that will require plenty of it’s own seed saving.

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1016

(Laugh!) Well, good luck with everything you’re growing, and I hope your crops outdo themselves with more awesomeness than ever before this year. :blush:

1017

WOW! That is a lot of work, Thank you! I might have put some zinnia seeds in ornamental, but they might be culinary or medicinal… I’m new to these areas, but they excite me to try new things. Esp eating flowers. Yes, please add a page with your instructions to the box, but if not, I’ll make my own cheat sheet for me.

I’ve gotten the box twice, and it was a little less than a year between times. I would love to get the box again, but like next spring, in a year, or at least not till winter (aka in 8 or 9 months). Seems to be about 2 weeks per person on the list, so I’ll shout out when I’m ready. :grinning_face: Getting the seed box is such a fun experience! I just gotta get ready for the next time it arrives, prepping seeds and all that. If y’all see seeds labeled “Waco, TX zone 8b”, those are from me! :green_heart:

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1018

There were some zinnia seeds in the ornamental only bag, and I know those are an edible flower, so I put them in edible flowers. Perhaps those were yours! No biggie — everyone is always learning new things. In fact, I learned something new just yesterday that was surprising and embarrassing and reminded me that I am sooooooooooo not perfect, and I need to continually pay attention to feedback that may help me improve my systems! :winking_face_with_tongue:

Oh, you’re the Waco, Texas person! :grin: I saw lots of stuff from you in there, which makes sense because you had the box immediately before me. :rofl: You did a great job labeling the seeds you put in — great documentation! :blush:

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1019

I am all done looking through the box, taking a few interesting oddities to try and adding some of my own. I was supprized to not see any ground cherries in there. Welp, there is now!

Next on the list is: @Iamadesertcreature

PM me your address and I’ll send it over.

Is UPS recomended or is USPS ok?

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1020

Use whatever shipping service makes the most sense to you! I usually use USPS because it’s usually cheaper, but in this particular case, UPS was 50 cents cheaper, sooooo . . . I went with them! :wink:

Oooh, ground cherries! Those are a great genus. Thank you for including those. :blush:

1021

Well, with one emergency and another (nothing huge, just unrelenting), it took a bit longer than I expected, but I have gone through the box at last. I’ve got a few things to put in, but I’m nearly ready to send it off. My computer is refusing to show me the forum anymore, so I can’t see who’s up next. :-/

1022

@Ermarie is next up

1023

@Iamadesertcreature

I sent you my address in a message!

1024

Thank you, @KadenceLunemann and @Ermarie, for being so quick!

And @Iamadesertcreature, thank you for letting us know. I appreciate that you got on to provide an update as soon as you could, even though your computer is being a nuisance! :sweat_smile:

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1025

That she is. She’s so old, she’s still running Win7. 0.o On a lot of fronts I like being outdated, but sometimes it does bite you.

1026

I know exactly what you mean! I choose the technology I want in my life very carefully. Sometimes that means I want a current thing; other times, I think the 20-years-old version is far superior for my needs. I rarely just assume I want recent or older. I do my research and choose based on what I want and need.

1027

It appears that the licorice seeds I included were not glycyrrhiza glabra, but glycyrrhiza echinata. I have been finding contradictory information and the seeds were definitely labeled as glabra (I’ll be contacting the vendor), but the information I’m finding online says otherwise.

Just a heads up for anyone planting them. The root is used the same way but can spread aggressively. Mine hasn’t, but that’s the information I am finding.

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1028

That’s very helpful information to know!

@Ermarie, if those licorice seeds are still in the box when you go through it, would you be willing to add that information to that packet? I’m sure it would be useful for whoever winds up taking it!

1029

I planted out the licorice seeds that were in the box before. Alas, I’ve not seen any coming up. But one reason I like no-till is because it’s not uncommon to have something sit in the soil for an extra year. I’ve got potatoes blooming, from seeds I put out in spring 2025. Thus, I’m needing to learn what things look like as I have all kinds of things coming up, but not all so I want to keep.

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1030

Yeah, I’ve learned to write down everything in my spreadsheet that I sowed where, and to not delete any of the past years’ maps, because it’s pretty common for something to pop up that I had long given up on. Which means I need to go looking through my maps of previous years to see what the heck I put there before.

This year, I’ve been surprised by my first Dalea candida! :smiley: I thought I wasn’t going to get any sprouts from those seeds, so I shrugged and moved on. Two years later, I got something I thought was alfalfa. (Alfalfa is a common weed in my climate.) I let it stay because that was a good place for a chop-and-drop nitrogen-fixing bush, so why not? And then that “alfalfa” started flowering, and the flowers were white and didn’t look like alfalfa at all, and I was like, “Wait a minute!”

Of course, sometimes even my maps aren’t too helpful. I’ve been surprised to see volunteers in places where I definitely didn’t put the seeds. Like, as in, all the way across the garden, and I know I didn’t move the soil. The wind does it, maybe?

I keep hoping that other my mysterious legume that I’ve never seen before is going to turn out to be Astragalus crassicarpus, but it’s probably a lentil, because I did sow lentil seeds in that area a few months ago. Or perhaps it’s an Amorpha canescens? In retrospect, it may perhaps have been wise to have not sowed so many plants I’ve never grown before with such similar-looking leaves in the same area, but . . . :joy: Well, I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually!

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