I think I have a super, never to recover from case of Spring Fever! Yup,....Hubby said "You want 24 empty milk containers?" "Yes" "What for?" "What!?" "Are you out of your mind!?" "No." "You are going to set them where?!" Darn, we don't drink alot of milk, my sister took her empties to the Land Fill Yesterday, my neighbor took theirs to the Land Fill yesterday !!!! Should have started day before yesterday! I've got the seeds, I have the dirt...well, by tomorrow,today will be yesterday and somebody has to have empties! Otherwise, WE will need to make a trip to the Recycle Center!

It's late at night.....you're packing up the last of the day's trades, and suddenly you realize that you don't have enough seeds to fill your trader's requests. HORRORS! This is major hassle because you now have to email the trader who's order you can't fill and offer them something else, or cancel the trade. So...how do you avoid the PITFALL of over-trading? Offer your seeds for trading only after they're made into packets. If you know how many packets of seeds you have to offer you can't "over-trade" them (arranging to trade more packs of seeds than you actually have made.) Over-trading is one of the most frequent mistakes that new traders make! It is a major hassle to email someone and cancel a trade. Keep track of your seed packet count to eliminate this pitfall.

Occasionally trades go wrong, but that's very rare. If it happens you handle it in private emails with one or two letters (no public cussin' or "naming names" is allowed on the seed exchange). Eventually you get your seeds. If you don't then "so what".....it's just seeds...not sport cars or mortgages. It isn't worth getting aggravated over. Don't ever take a failed trade personally. More than likely the seeds got lost in the mail, a responsible trader will offer to replace them and send another set to you. Sometimes, sadly, a trade doesn't arrive because the trader on the other side may suddenly be having a brutal time with life and that awful distraction can be enough to drive a trade out of one's head....the responsibility of the trade could be insignificant to the agonizing matters at hand. So if you do ever have a trade that doesn't work out please be very-VERY kind to the other trader when you write that the seeds haven't arrived yet. Send one reminder email...wait a couple of weeks before sending another one if it's needed, then be just as kind as you were in the first one. After that DO NOT send another reminder. Just let it slide if the seeds never arrive. The vast majority of traders are extremely generous and in just a month of trading you'll have more seeds than you know what to do with.

That sometimes happens....it's not a big problem. Email the trader and in a friendly manner let them know that a pack you didn't trade for was sent instead of one you wanted. (If you like the substitute seeds then keep them and enjoy growing the seeds....you don't have to return them.) The other trader may offer in their reply to either mail you the correct pack now, or they may suggest that they can include it (or a substitute selection) later on in another trade with you. Both suggestions are very acceptable. Accidents can happen with trading. Real life can be very distracting. Getting a different pack of seeds than you thought you were getting is always a suprise, however it's never a bad suprise. Those seeds may just grow into some new favorites for your garden.