sorry posted this on the wrong forum .forgive me .

I do from six to about a dozen or more (up to a good, thick sprinkle) to a used plastic bottle, depending on the plant and how crazy I feel. You can sow a whole lot and plant a whole bunch and let the seedlings fight it out when you transplant them, but I prefer to keep all of them and separate them later. You can sow medium-densely and separate them once the seedlings produce a couple of pairs of seed leaves. They should be pretty easy to separate then. As for how deep to bury them, as carrie said, read up on them, as some need light, some need dark, etc. What I usually do is just cover them lightly with soil or sand or something to keep the seed solidly in the soil, so that some light still comes through, and let the daily light cycles do the rest. After all, that's how they naturally germinate. Good luck!

I've got SASEs down to an organized science. I prepack seeds--I don't do twenty packs, I'll do a hundred and twenty packs of a variety. I have multiple varieties packed and ready to share. Sharing is easy--I've got toms in trays and non-toms in a clear vinyl CD holder tacked to a door closet in my office. Opposite the door is a table where I fill the SASEs...which I lay out in rows and do en masse. Currently I am doing three SASEs of which the Your Choice Tomato SASE I do one envelope at a time so I don't get confused. I don't ask for bubble-mailers, I have people send me long #10 envies, but I still have to pad those seeds. I buy huge rolls of bubble-wrap and cut them to size. The bubble-wrap pieces I keep in a tray on the table I fill the SASEs, along with address labels, various stickers, etc that I need for the SASEs, including a really nice tape gun for taping over the back flap--I stuff the envies well and the envie flap glue just doesn't do it. Today I sent off a very big box of seeds to a community garden project in Milwaukee. I had the seeds on hand and ready to go--all I had to do was bundle them and list them on a letter which went inside the box with the seeds. The key to doing SASEs is to remember that you are in charge...I want to share seeds but I am not going nuts by doing it, so if someone wants seeds they have to accept what I send to them, but as I do send a large variety there's never been a complaint. I rarely ever take requests because that means waiting for a list of requests to arrive. Nada. NADA! I chose the format of Six Packs of my choice some years back and it's been very successful. I do yearly offer a six pack choice list of tomatoes but even then I do ask for a list of four defaults, so again by having that default list I lower my stress level significantly. Sharing seeds is not done casually, it's an organized process that runs smoothly because I keep large amounts of pre-packed seeds ready to go. The seeds and mailing supplies are organized and at hand. When you promise to send seeds its up to you to fulfill that promise--when the envelope or mailer arrives you fill it ASAP and send it back on its way. I fill within 24 hours because I don't know how many are coming in the next mail. I've had the PO guy stagger up the walk with mail buckets of SASEs and then it dries up to a trickle a couple of weeks later, then a month later it's another hundred on a Monday. I never know how many are coming. Sometimes SASE senders will drive me bonkers by asking if I ever got their SASE, but only give me their online name or forum, so next I have to ask for them for an address and a real name so I can begin looking through the stack of outer envies that I hold onto. When I find their envie I let them know that their seeds are on their way and I also let them know that as they sent it to me LAST WEEK it's a bit much to ask where their seeds are. Harummmph! But that doesn't happen too often. The joys far outweigh the work that goes into it. Last week I got an email from a nice lady who wants to send her butterfly bush seeds to me so that I can share them through SASEs, that's wonderful--even better is that she learned how to save those seeds with info she read on WinterSown.Org. It just doesn't get any better than that!

I'm a newbie too T-bird, and I know how you feel. It seems all a bit odd. There's so much time to wait from now until germ time. But from others here, they say its a success, and what a space saver, and I can earn a buck while I'm at it, so I'm in. I've really run out of garden space, since i only rent, but what I do is dig up something I've had for awhile and give it away or well it. I am trying to start a little business but for the most part I just give it away, especially to a certain fellow who donates it to his church. Just have faith T-bird and bank on the experience of these knowledgable gardeners. Find someone who will adopt you, then you'll be off and running. I believe there is a site for getting adopted. Can someone help me out here? I'll see if I can find a link. Are you interested in sowing other seeds? If you ask people will send you seeds, they love to help out us newbies. Trudi also gives out free seeds at Wintersown.org. If you go there you take a little fun quiz and at the end of it you get a paper verifying you went through the process, and in so doing you learn about WSing. Trudi is our greatest help, I guess she got this all started. her site is amazing, Check it out. Micki