Well I've only been trading since 2006 but this was what I came up with. 2 - (a) Setting Up Your GW Profile: (1) Tell Members about your garden. [Your suggestion.] (2) Make sure you have listed an e-mail address in your profile. (b) Trade Page: (1) Date it - Usually at the top of the seeds you have for trade section, add a line that says the last time you updated the information. (2) Seed source - If you can anotate where you received the seed from i.e. (C) commercial, (G) garden, or (T) trade. 5 - This is just FYI - My seed packets contain the following information plant name, annual/perennial/biennial, USDA Zone, Number of seeds, Light, Soil, Height, (bloom time and color if there is room), my screen name and the year of harvest. 7 - Some seeds must be fresh to be viable while some can be decades old and still be viable. If you are trading for seeds that do not remain viable for long discuss their freshness with the other person when you negotiate the trade. 9 - Here is what I do. If the seeds are flat and I only have one or two packets I send them inside a greeting card. If I am sending several seed packets or seeds that are not flat I use bubble wrap, either a padded envelope or padding inside an envelope. 10 - I take used bubble envelopes cut them to the size I want and reuse them. Just remember all information and postage on the old envelope needs to be blacked out. Frequently I put an address label over the old address or whatever may be in that area of the envelope so there isn't any confusion. I hope something here helps.

The suggested minimum seed count per packet is 24 seeds (two dozen). Some seeds are very rare, or are difficult to collect, or are weighty and costly to mail. Because of any of these reasons you may wish to put less than 24 seeds into a packet. ALWAYS put this information in your very first post when you offer an "under-count" package of seeds. That way there's no "hard feelings" later on. If a trader knows exactly what they're trading for they will be content with their trade.

Sometimes traders are extremely generous. They send you a life-time supply of seeds. You can't use them all yourself.....so what can you do with them? You can make them into packets and trade them for other seeds you could use, or you can share them as bonuses with your traders. Once seeds from someone else are in your home you can do with them what you like. Trading or giving away the extras will always be acceptable.

It's YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to keep track of who you are trading with. You print a copy of the trade for your records, or save it into a notebook. An easy way to do this is to print out the address correspondence and write on it the day you mailed out your envelope. Save your correspondence in a brightly colored pocket folder and use it ONLY FOR YOUR TRADES. Keep it by your computer and never walk it out of the room!!! If you don't have a printer you can keep track of your trades by writing down the info in a spiral notebook. Use one sheet per trade/sase. Write down the email of the person you're mailing to, what was sent, what is expected in return, and write down the day it was sent. An excellent suggestion is to put a piece of long ribbon through a ring-hole in the spiral binder and TIE IT TO THE COMPUTER TABLE so it can't disappear. When the seeds come in you can look up right away who they're from and send a THANK YOU via email. Then draw a line through the page to indicate that the trade has been completed....now you're done! I save my "address" emails to a folder in my inbox that I've created called "seed trades". When the seeds come in, I pull up the corresponding letter, and I hit the "respond button" and I say, "thanks, I got the seeds!". Once you say THANK YOU your responsibility is done....all GOOD TRADERS acknowledge the receipt of the other trader's seeds and say thank you. You can then delete the email or move it to another folder called "completed trades". Once you've sent a "Thank You for Trading" you're done with the trade. Store your seeds where they'll be safe and dry until you sow them, and dream and plan for your new garden and future trades. =====================================