You bet! So far it has kept me from joining in on any swaps. I've never gathered seeds before this year and I feel really stupid. I may end up trying to grow a lot of chaff!

Maybe you and I should exchange - NO BLAME attached! LOL

Oh my and I thought it was only me. I buy seeds to trade cause so worried mine wont grow for others. I am big into tomato seeds. Right now stocking up on bean seeds. Andvery impatiently waiting for my cosmos and zinnas to give up a few seeds.
ML

Folks here know that growing from seed is in itself experimentation. It's like going to a garage sale. You can find something great or it's a clunker, but you haven't spent much.

I have no hard feelings anywhere and hope nobody thinks ill of me. It's just not a retailer-consumer relationship.

I thought I was the only one. I always worry that what I harvested won't be "good seed" or that I haven't put enough seeds in a packet or that horrors of horrors I didn't label the seeds right and I've sent Great Blue Lobelia instead of Red Lobelia.

That is definitely me! You said it, seedmamma

Think of all the packs you have purchased from T&M or Parks that have tanked.

Relax and be free! Don't bogart those impatiens balsam!

Oh you are SO NOT ALONE! But I'm carefully following everyone's directions, especially trudi's (gotta love the wintersown.org site, thanks trudi!!!!!) My 2 biggest feared seeds are my Scabiosa, in which the whole head looks like seeds, but only the first one or two that fall out are nice and fat, the rest are skinny, so I assume those are sterile and only collect the one or two fatties per flower. And my rudbekia, all those tiny splinter like seeds. It wasn't till I found them on wintersown.org that I realized that's what they're supposed to look like and started to actually keep what I pulled off! I finally figured out the purple coneflowers, once you see it, it's soo easy.

My anxiety comes more from the packaging then anything else. I get these wonderfully folded little paper packets or baggies with stickers that have more info then a seed catalog. To get rid of my guilt I've put a little warning on my exchange page.
:)

Well, I didn't..... until now.... thanks. ;-)

My problem was more along the line of kek19's... I did the purple coneflower thing (y'know, sending the wrong part and thinking it was seeds, but that was on another website at another time, and I've almost forgiven myself for it). And although I love to share any found rudbeckias, I'd go blind separating those seeds (I tried, I really did) so I gave up and resorted to packing up the chaff with it. Re: the coneflowers, purple is easy now - yes! - but when you get into the other ones and the sizes of the seeds change I get nervous sending those out.

Still, as has been said before, it's a gamble and an experiment, and I'm trying it all out along with the rest of my traders. When mine fail, I blame myself - not my trader. Although with kek19's information about scabiosa I'll have to research/rethink that one (and recheck my scabiosa seed packets). For stuff like that, I usually put everything I have in one or two packets anyway so there's sure to be something viable in there, but if somebody were to divide and trade them, somebody else may get a packet of duds.

Bottom line: Just do your best and don't worry about it.
:-)

Count me in - I tend to swap/trade easy seeds, like MGs or canna, stuff like that. Ones where it's easy to tell what is the seed. But I'm getting better; this year I harvested a ton of zinnia and melampodium seed - I think I got those right. And salvia - oy! But things like asters and coneflowers and any of the rudbeckia still give me the heebie-jeebies, I'm so afraid that all I have is chaff!

PV

I've worried that what I was sending wasn't really the seed, but I've learned so much from everyone on this this forum. Like mexican sunflower, wait until it is dry and prickly, and the seeds are down in there, and KMOGG, the tiny black seeds are inside the pink petals, so if I'd waited till everything turned brown, I would have missed them all.

And the people on this forum are so friendly and helpful and non-judgmental, it's not like some forums where you get your head bit off for the tiniest thing. This is a good group.

Carol

My seed anxiety is more of a "I haven't checked the Exchange pages in hours. Maybe someone offered a SASBE of their entire seed collection right after I last checked!"

But I do also have: "How many seeds should I sow? If I sow them all, I'll have way too many seedlings, and no back-up if they all die. But what if germination is low? What if this packet got heated up? What if these are old seeds? How many should I sow!"

I don't feel much anxiety about saving and trading regular flower seeds. I do get anxious about my tomato seeds. If they get mislabeled or there's a stray seed, there's no way to tell! I am so careful when I'm fermenting and packaging them, thinking about the shame if I traded with someone and it was the wrong plant.

Someone on the Tomato forum is always telling people they should buy commercial seeds, because seeds from traders are always mixed up. But Bakemom's right--commercial seeds can be messed up too, either not germinating, or the wrong plant. Many people post about commercial seed mix-ups with tomatoes-and almost every traded tomato I've grown was correct.

So, save those seeds, and who cares about chaff! However, it is good to look up what the seed looks like; sometimes I get a packet in trade where I do know what the seed looks like, and there aren't very many of those amongst the chaff! Do I hate the trader? Nope! It's just good to look it up if you can.

Seed Anxiety?

I just don't know where to begin...

T

Lol. I'm brand new and haven't a clue what I'm doing. I'm worried that if I try to save seeds from the toms that I'll WS next year, that they won't be true. I don't want to send crossed toms to anyone.
But I'm just experimenting anyway.

(hmmmm, I wonder what would happen if I crossed a cherokee purple tomato with a mini white cucumber? yummie!)

Yeah, I worry a lot. Being new at this I worry if I have the seed or something else. And I wonder now if I have sent out the wrong thing in the past on things that I have harvested myself especially on local wildflowers. What I have found really helpful is when people post pictures such as where the seed pod is located, what it looks like, and what the seeds look like. I wish we had more people that would do that. It would sure help us Newbies out a lot more. When I look on the seed ID site I don't always find what I'm looking for. And even here on the seed forum where people ask questions about seeds I can't always find the answer I'm looking for. But sometimes someone wonderful like Remy will post an amazing picture that clarifies everything. If she hadn't posted that picture I would have sent out the wrong thing.

stage_rat, I found out this year, you can't count on commercial packs too. I ws an entire pack of cauwiflower, and got BROCCOLI!! Talk about mix up! I was so disappointed!

As long as I've done this, I still have some worries that what I send might not germinate. But, I have learned to trust that if I make a mistake, it is up to the person I'm trading with to let me know! Else, how would you know? Besides Wintersown.org, which has fabulous info, The Seed Site also has some good pictures. None of them, of course, have everything. (Betcha Trudi's working on it, though, LOL)

Bakemom is right - don't worry, be happy!

I had that problem this year with balloon flowers and tomatoes. So I threw a few seeds in a wet paper towel. In a few days they sprouted so I knew I did it right. I have never collected tomatoe seeds before and I was afraid i collected the balloon flowers to early. I guess not!!

Once your figure out the basic principles of how each plant produces its own seed - the heebies go away. Rudbeckias have those splinters - no matter if you have a little triloba or a huge maximus. Coreopsis - same thing - turtleshells in the larger flowers and little black half moons in plains - but the idea is the same. Once you get to know the plants, the mystery is over.

If they grow - they grow. If not, well try again. A bazillion things can happen to a seed from start to finish and you just have to roll with it. Relax and trade with folks you know. I could care less if someone boo-boos on seeds to me. We are all learning together.

This is my first time harvesting seeds, and I almost did save the wrong part on the Echinacea. Then I remembered that Bakemom had sent me some in my newbie pack, and I knew that it had germinated, so I went through my seed drawer to find what was left of the packet. They sure didn't look like seeds to me, so then I did a search on Yahoo! Finally, convinced that I was doing it wrong, I threw out that part that LOOKS like a seed, and saved the RIGHT part, LOL! These are from 'Sunrise', and I remember seeing a thread that said it is hit or miss whether or not the seeds will actually produce flowers that look like 'Sunrise', so I am still apprehensive about sending them to anyone. I guess I will WS them this year, and see how it goes.

Proudgm made a good point! We see lots of "after" pictures, of WS beauties in bloom, but not many pictures of the seeds "before" sowing. I plan to look up anything I harvest now, just to make sure I am not messing up again.

Happy gathering,
Bonnie

I am so glad to hear i am not the only one who has sent wrong seeds or thought they might have. i also did the coneflower thing a couple of years ago. i did it with monarda also. i know better now. i've also received the wrong thing. it's a little disappointing at first but then you get a suprise. and that is definitly fun. OF course now i have 10 Star of yelta morning glories instead of moonflower. but thats okay, i've got tons of seed to share! and somebody else sent me moonflower seeds for this next year.
Tanya