Input on the Everything But The Kitchen Sink swap

[Tormahto]

While it's fresh in your minds, I'd like to hear from participants how the EBTKS swap was for you.

What did you like?
Anything that you didn't like?
What to do to make it even better?

Understand that next year (as long as I'm still here and able) there will most likely be multiple boxes going out.

Depending on what participants want, there might be a box of just tomatoes, a box of just tomatoes and peppers, and of course the everything box. And, if there is enough demand (and seeds) multiple boxes of those three listed.

I will not have time for much of any input myself on this thread, for more than a month.

[habitat-gardener]

I loved the variety! An all-tomato or tomato+pepper box would not be nearly as interesting.

I loved the detailed sort within the tomato bag (though I'd put peppers and eggplants in a separate bag, rather than combining all the nightshades. Maybe "nightshades other than tomatoes"?). When I got the box, the "miscellaneous" bag inside the nightshades bag had all kinds of seeds, not just nightshades.

I loved the detailed labels on a few of the seed packs.
Each label should have the name and DATE!!!
It is also helpful to know a little more, such as (for tomatoes), early/mid/late season, color of fruit, det/dwarf/indet/micro, etc.
For flowers: height, sun/shade, color, etc.
It really helped to know more than the name, and not have to look up every single one.
On the other hand, it was exciting to find several varieties that were on my wish list. All I needed was the name+date for those!

I liked that most of the seeds were packaged so that you could take one pack, rather than bulk packs you had to repack. Assuming a similar time frame -- get the box, look through it for a day, send it off pronto -- anything that can speed along the choosing process is good.

It was really helpful to know that the box was running low on pepper seeds so that I could pack up some pepper seeds before I got the box. Periodic reports from box recipients would be very helpful for those farther down the queue.

I did not like all of the morning glory seed packs! So many!! It seemed as if every single person before me had added several of these. I ended up reorganizing the "miscellaneous" flower bag to sort out all the ipomoea/convolvulus/morning glory seeds and also made new sorting bags for several other flowers of which there seemed to be many packs/varieties.

A good rule of thumb (call it the Morning Glory rule, or the Yellow Pear Tomato rule) could be as follows: if the box already contains multiples of something you were planning to add, don't add unless you take out some. Who knows, someone else's seed might be a slightly different variant. Don't keep adding seeds if there's already an abundance of that variety. (And look up the botanical name of your seeds, so that you don't inadvertently add more of what's already overabundant in the box.)

I did not like the labels that were hard to read.
Marker on plastic fades and rubs off. It worked ok for categories, not ok for individual seed packs.
It was fun to see origami seed envelopes, but please make sure that the side you're writing on is blank, not dark or patterned. These tiny seed packs were very hard to read, and it looked like the hard pressure of the pen to write dark-on-dark labels could have even damaged the seeds.

No paper clips!! Instead, use baggies to keep multiples together.

No tree seeds! Or at least a detailed label describing why this particular crape myrtle is so special.

Rule of thumb: the bigger the plant, or the longer-lived, the more important it is to give as much detailed information about it as possible. It's rather a different decision to plant a tomato seed that matures in a season, versus planting a tree or shrub that may take a few years to produce a seed or fruit, or whatever makes it special.

Thanks, Tormato and all the participants, for making this such a fun swap.

[tyrupp]

When are you going to send out the mmmm swap seeds ?

[Stitchingmom]

I loved this swap, and I think it was so much less taxing for Tormato than the MMMM. Also, it would be simple to transfer to someone else to run, if necessary or desired.

I liked being able to get exactly what I wanted, without ending up with things I don't grow. I would stick with a tomato/cucumber/pepper box, mostly, so dividing them into smaller categories makes perfect sense to me.

[Tormahto]

I loved the variety! An all-tomato or tomato+pepper box would not be nearly as interesting.

I loved the detailed sort within the tomato bag (though I'd put peppers and eggplants in a separate bag, rather than combining all the nightshades. Maybe "nightshades other than tomatoes"?). When I got the box, the "miscellaneous" bag inside the nightshades bag had all kinds of seeds, not just nightshades.

I loved the detailed labels on a few of the seed packs.
Each label should have the name and DATE!!!
It is also helpful to know a little more, such as (for tomatoes), early/mid/late season, color of fruit, det/dwarf/indet/micro, etc.
For flowers: height, sun/shade, color, etc.
It really helped to know more than the name, and not have to look up every single one.
On the other hand, it was exciting to find several varieties that were on my wish list. All I needed was the name+date for those!

I liked that most of the seeds were packaged so that you could take one pack, rather than bulk packs you had to repack. Assuming a similar time frame -- get the box, look through it for a day, send it off pronto -- anything that can speed along the choosing process is good.

It was really helpful to know that the box was running low on pepper seeds so that I could pack up some pepper seeds before I got the box. Periodic reports from box recipients would be very helpful for those farther down the queue.

I did not like all of the morning glory seed packs! So many!! It seemed as if every single person before me had added several of these. I ended up reorganizing the "miscellaneous" flower bag to sort out all the ipomoea/convolvulus/morning glory seeds and also made new sorting bags for several other flowers of which there seemed to be many packs/varieties.

A good rule of thumb (call it the Morning Glory rule, or the Yellow Pear Tomato rule) could be as follows: if the box already contains multiples of something you were planning to add, don't add unless you take out some. Who knows, someone else's seed might be a slightly different variant. Don't keep adding seeds if there's already an abundance of that variety. (And look up the botanical name of your seeds, so that you don't inadvertently add more of what's already overabundant in the box.)

I did not like the labels that were hard to read.
Marker on plastic fades and rubs off. It worked ok for categories, not ok for individual seed packs.
It was fun to see origami seed envelopes, but please make sure that the side you're writing on is blank, not dark or patterned. These tiny seed packs were very hard to read, and it looked like the hard pressure of the pen to write dark-on-dark labels could have even damaged the seeds.

No paper clips!! Instead, use baggies to keep multiples together.

No tree seeds! Or at least a detailed label describing why this particular crape myrtle is so special.

Rule of thumb: the bigger the plant, or the longer-lived, the more important it is to give as much detailed information about it as possible. It's rather a different decision to plant a tomato seed that matures in a season, versus planting a tree or shrub that may take a few years to produce a seed or fruit, or whatever makes it special.

Thanks, Tormato and all the participants, for making this such a fun swap.

I don't know if someone started a "nightshade" large baggie.

Originally, it was about 20 large baggies of tomatoes, basically the "Categories" of the MMMM, which separated varieties into colors, sizes, shapes, plant height, etc...

There was one baggie for Hot peppers, another baggie for Sweet peppers (don't expect me to get all of the peppers in their correct baggie), and there was a separate baggie for eggplant.

The idea for the possible tomato/pepper box was that they are the two most popular traded veggies from what I've seen. And since cucumbers are also high on the trading list, there is the possibility of a tomato/pepper/cucumber/(maybe some other thing) box. We'll find out what the demand, for what to include in a box, is, late in the year.

I mention almost every year in the MMMM about thin "permanent" markers on clear plastic baggies, being almost impossible to read before it smudges.

And, I always mention no paper clips in the MMMM, too. I'll have to post these rules for the next EBTKS swap.

[Tormahto]

When are you going to send out the mmmm swap seeds ?

It's unknown until I get over the walking pneumonia.

[eyegrotom]

I did enjoy exploring thru the box. I think that if you did different varieties boxes, like one for tomato and pepper seeds. One for for beans and peas, etc. Than you could have 4 or 5 different boxes going to 4 or 5 different people at the same time. Of course it would take more planning.
People would have to send you there address as they put there name on the list for the different boxes.