Wonderful advice from everyone! If you follow it, you'll soon have gardens full of variety. I had nothing when I started at GW, and you WILL catch up if you focus on what you have and what will do well in your gardens. Let everyone you know know that you are looking to expand your gardens. I became the SPCA of plants at work! Co-workers brought in bags! Collect seeds where ever you go. Go to the seed exchange, and trade there to create "stock". Look for local plant swaps and garden clubs. Shop the end of season sales (seeds too! They're good for more than a year, and will be named varieties!). Offer what you DO have for trade, and make sure that wish list is filled in on your page. Myabe try something more general like "yellow bloomers for my sun garden". You worry that so many people have more to trade than you do; you can benefit from that. I am continually amazed at what people offer me for my ordinary plants. I am now able to trade named hostas and daylilies that were given to me in exchange for my common, unnamed plants. I do agree with Sue to add your state to your info. I see you are zone 5 and I want some lavendar, but there is a big difference in cost shipping to New England or to the west coast for me. I might skip over your post rather than ask where you are shipping from or making an offer. You will achieve your goal if you keep planting! And as you said, continue to be a good trader and build that reputation.

Sounds like some kid whose school cannot afford to teach them about computers, or he would have known where the money is. So sorry this happened to you. What a mess. As Annie said, it is the violation of your personal space as much or even more than the loss of stuff. Of course, if the stuff has personal meaning and is irreplaceable, that is a horrible feeling, too. I had a ring stolen from my house that had been my great aunt's, and I feel sick about it to this day. Good idea to put the bars up, distasteful as they are. We've had a lot of house burglaries around here,including one on my street. Ick.

I will have to write to Mother and get the name, location and hours of that store. I would love to get you a phone number so you could call ahead, but the only phone in town is in a phone booth in the park....LOL (Don't you believe that either...all those Amish folks now have a cell phone hidden deep in a pocket..... LOL) I asked the lady how she could afford to have such low prices and still make deals like she gave Mother. She said it was easy. The land under the store is part of her families farm, the lumber to build the building was harvested from their own woodlot and cut in their sawmill. The building was built by her 7 uncle's and 5 brothers. They have no light bill or gas bill, taxes are an absolute minimum because their town has no fire dept, police dept or or other expensive infrastructure and all the employees who work in the store with her are daughters or other family members, who are content to work for minimum wage and occassionally other ladies in the community help out and take their pay in trade. Now for you ladies who are familiar with Youngstown & Boardman, here are a couple flash from the past memory photos for you: Lanternman Mill, the grist mill in Millcreek park. The actual wooden water wheel that powers the mill is inside the building in the stone section at the bottom. They did that to protect the wheel from freezing in winter.(you can see the bridge upstream from the mill) The covered bridge in Millcreek park: I could put on a complete show of photos of flowers from Fellowes Gardens botanical garden in Mill Creek Park.

Thinking that contacting the site to complain would likely be more effective. ETA: this was on another thread discussing the problem. If you have AdBlock Plus, you can eliminate the scrolling stuff. Worked for me... "Debby_ab OH! OH! OH! With I just got rid of it. :) I right clicked over the "carousel" and AdBlock asked me if I want to block it. I do. It did. Now I only see 3 dots. :)"