Ok, seriously.....today was the first day I got the chance to come look at the forums.....now picture me jumping up & down like I'm going to wet my pants!! lol I can't wait to meet you Carol and get my seeds. I don't even care if I have only a few seeds I just like getting new and different seeds. I have tried something new every year for the past two years and will continue because this is the only way I can find out exactly what will do well in my garden. This year I would like to concentrate more on herbs. I'd like to start drying herbs and making my own spice mixes. I haven't yet talked my hubby into building on a sunroom for a year round garden though. Which, is what I really want. I am really excited to get the garden started as are the kids. They actually helped me put my seed envelope together. I think they get just as excited as I do about getting seeds. My five year old is starting to show a great interest in them as well, lol. Hopefully, starting them early will make them experts by the time they are my age. Ok, now I need to get my dirt mixture ready and pots ready to start seeds indoors. I think I will try Carol's container method from last year which was small paper cups. Those worked well and are cheap. Now, maybe I can kick my husband from my office so I can use his study space for my seeds. Well, maybe not....hmmmm....looks around the house........where oh where.......... By the way........I love this place.....I would rather come here and read all the posts about gardening and such than go to the mall shopping!! lol I'm pretty much like Carol....I like being home and being in my garden. I will call you Carol and thank you again. Melissa

Thanks a bunch Johnny! That's alot of seed packs... You'll probably be dreaming about Seed Packs or Peppers jumping over the fence when your done, Haha! ThePodPiper: Nice Pics and setup you've got. Very healthy looking plants too.

An amazingly stuffed full priority mail bubble envelope arrived yesterday, so after dinner I sat down to dig in & giggled with delight as I pulled out so many fun things that Vina had creatively packed up & sent. She must know my mind or something because everything was perfect! _Butterfly card lavishly decorated in gold, 3 dimensions, & colorful along with friendly sentiments and a happy face! _2 recent Garden Gate magazines that make flower gardening looks so lovely & easy. I flipped through & will definitely use that tip to scarify seeds by putting them in a jar with sandpaper & shake, shake, shake! Perfect for those Sweet Peas. _an entire package of Godiva dark chocolates in an assortment of flavors. I won't tell how many I've eaten already. There's still some left. He, he. _Grow Ums Herb Garden that contained 8 coco pellets & labels along with 4 types of seeds (basil, cilantro, oregano, & parsley). Looks like fun to start them this way & I have lots of pots to make a nice display. There are 20 seeds in each packet, so there will have plenty for several pots and I can share with my daughter because she also loves the fresh herbs. _12 packets of seeds from her garden all labeled & sealed in tiny ziplocks. Not one stray seed! She sent me just what we'd love to try here. My hubby loves all the daisy type flowers like blanket flower or especially coneflowers that are big, bright or bicolored. The generous 12 she sent me were: 1. bee balm Marshall's Delight 2. Clematis Jackmani (I have several empty trellis here & just received two cedar ones from a friend who is moving in 3 weeks.) 3. Clematis Arctic Queen 4. Coreopsis Jethro Tull 5. Coneflower Ruby Giant 6. Coneflower Milkshake 7. Dianthus Siberian Blues 8. Nigella Love in a Mist all blue (I want to plant these along the row of raspberries provided they survived the storm as the trellis is down & there are tree tops & limbs on them.) 9. Gaillardia Fanfare 10. Rudbeckia Indian summer 11. Sweet Pea, everlasting (by the way someone told me these are great for improving the soil like other legumes, so plant away in new garden spaces to make way for vegetables or other perennials) 12. Yarrow Cerise Queen If all of this germinates & grows I'll have lots of plants to fill in the holes left by the storm! Thank YOU Vina for welcoming me in to the group & sending such a generous package that definitely brought me some winter cheer! Here's one of my favorite shasta daisy pics from a few years ago. Grandma gave this chicken on a stick to our daughter when she was young & she liked to surprise me with it by moving it around. She had said she tried to make the chicken look like it was standing on the daisy flower. Corrine

Vanisle_BC - That information you understood is correct. it's doubtful that the US and Canadian governments would fine you. However, the American recipient could be fined. And who in their right mind would want to trade seed under those conditions? If I had sent seeds to Canada and in return, the seeds the Canadian trader sent me were confiscated with perhaps a threat of a fine from the USDA, I would be furious. It is a very serious issue which my daughter experienced. She was living in the US and had purchased a home. At the time, I had a wholesale production nursery in Canada and she needed plants so she visited me and prior to her arrival, I had the Canadian government prepare a phytosanitary certificate as she was bringing back plants and seeds. My daughter added a few extra plants not listed on the phytosanitary certificate and put them in her vehicle. At the border, the customs agents went through every single pack of seed and every plant. They found the plants that weren't listed and confiscated them. Then they put her and her husband on a list of people know as 'Agricultural Threats'. Every single time she visited Canada for over 2 years and returned to the US, her vehicle was pulled over and she was detained for hours. She was lucky as she did not receive a fine. Although this website is international, the vast majority of people posting here are Americans. I believe that this is the reason they stopped the trading altogether and I highly doubt that they will ever allow for international seed trading again given the current USDA requirements. As I said, I've lived in both countries and although there is an 'imaginary' border between the two countries, the two governments are vastly different.