Hi Julianna! Nice to meet you! -Let÷s hope Jenny jumps on the bandwagon then! Well, one thing is the balcony plants... most of the ones I had where hardly irreplaceable... Granted, I doá¹Â÷t really see a hole in my economy for a new Rose Zephyrine Drouhin at the moment, but I can ALWAYS get a new one, and until then, there are so many annuals that I can sow (which is, what I÷m doing this year). It is much worse with the house plants. Some of those, I had had since I moved away from home 20 years ago. Others where heirlooms from my grandparents. When that disaster happened, I was working double shifts, and didn÷t really check what was going on, until too late. Everything simply died right above the root, then "melted" into a nasty mush and got covered with black fungus. I÷ve never seen anything like it... that fungus worked lightening fast.... Two orchids and two other plants that where dormant at the time, survived... everything else died! All due to a crassula, that jumped into my cart at the supermarket. From bringing home the plant, to throwing everything out, took a week! I÷ve never seen anything like it before! In the future, everything I bring home, will spend a week, out on the stairs, before making it into the flat or onto my balcony! The only downside to that, is, that I once had a plant stolen from out there, but I÷ll rather have that happen, than killing everything inside!

Local trading has nothing to do with it. Many forums like the African Violets Forum, the Alliums Forum, the Asian Vegetables Forum, etc, etc have exchange forums. There are even many stand-alone, non-local exchange forums like the Aquatic Plant Exchange, the Plant Exchange Forum, and the Seed Exchange Forum. For some reason, Gardenweb has neglected giving this forum, the Trees Forum, and the Conifers Forum exchange pages. All of these Forums have lots of people willing and wanting to do swaps. It's weird because many of the other exchange forums on Gardenweb have had almost no activity in years. Yet Gardenweb keeps those forums going and ignores the need for exchange forums here and in other forums. I think it would take a real concerted effort to get Gardenweb to make the change. They seem resistant to sensible change in many instances.

Have you ever seen the big tall poles with a propellor on them. They produce energy and for most people who put them in they produce more energy then they use and they start getting a check from the electic company instead of a bill. Problem is for most people the amountof money they are saving is not even close to the cost of the generator. (Est. $10-20,000_ With a bill of $500 dollars a month it would pay for itself in four years and then your electric is essentially free. I don't know about electric heat, but I would imagine you may still need more power than a single wind generator can produce. If you plan on staying in your house for a while it may be a worth while investment. In my case (or my fathers case) it would take too many years for the generator to pay for itself than is worth while for us and we don't have that kind of money upfront. It is easier to pay for the electric bill each month which is a smaller cost than the wind generator even though the long term costs are higher.

Meredith, I try to get most things going at least six weeks or more in advance. It's hard to seed plants that hit just right based on so many variables like weather. I started the basil for the spring swap about eight weeks ahead. Three weeks to germinate and five weeks to mature. They turned out a nice size for the swap, but could easily have been too early or late. Each type of plant varies in rate of growth so check the seed pack label and try to guess based on germination or maturity days. I root cuttings on a regular basis as I prune or just want to start new plants for fun. Soft stem cuttings root faster than woody ones and some plants can take months to show new growth so timing depends on the plant. Also depends on where you are keeping them because it's hot so anything I root now comes inside.