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.

Good suggestions. I don't cut my milk jug all the way around, leave a little hinge just under the handle. Then when I open them up, I peg them to the ground. If it gets cold again, it's easier to tape it shut again for late frosts and you probably don't have to tape it as thoroughly as initially. I save my containers and use them again, and the right kinds of tops are with the right jugs. What I'm wrestling with is that I decided I want to sow a lot of seeds in oversized cell packs. I have the trays that match but no holes in them. Anyway, I don't want to preset anything to hold plastic up and over them now, and the ground will be frozen when I set my jugs out in about Feb to poke anything down in. I've been looking around and the only thing I have to keep the plastic a couple inches off (or just an inch might be ok) the surface of the cell packs to keep from crushing the new growth would be some bricks, some old glass blocks. Can anybody think of what might work better that is easy/free/cheap? I think saran wrap would be too thin for those and have some clear plastic in a roll that is probably too heavy, maybe w/slits in it heavy would be ok. I can get something in between. The reason I want to sow in cell packs is for some of my seeds that resent transplanting to have a better chance and save me work later. I sometimes start in those trays you talked about w/covers (from McD's salads, KFC etc.) They work great. Sometimes I plant directly into the ground but some I like to transplant individually into cell packs so they can grow on, very tedious. Sowing directly into cell packs would save me that step. One trick I learned for spring sowing but should work equally well for winter sowing is to plant in the deli containers, then fill 16 oz plactic cups w/drainage holes punched in the bottom partway up with potting soil. Then use a spatula & dull knife and work a chunk of seedlings out of the tray and just set it on top of the soil, the roots will find it easy to work on down. Then I let grow on for awhile and plant with a bulb planter. That would work well for people whose gardens are crowded or whatever. I have to make things as easy on myself as possible or it won't all get done.

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.

After exchanging addresses you can mail your seeds. The seed packs are carefully wrapped with bubblewrap and placed in an envelope or you can use a padded mailer to send them. You need to cushion them in fat packaging so they don't go through the PO's automatic mail sorting machines. Always make sure that your email address is included with the seeds. If the trader needs to contact you later on the email address is right there for them to use. Always write your return mailing address on the outside of the envelope. The post offive will charge a bit more for mailing a fat letter, it is because the letter gets out-sorted into "hand-mail". It's too fat to go through their high-speed mail sorters. The width should always be over a 1/4" thick to keep a letter out of the mail-sorters because these high speed machines can crush the seeds to powder. It's courteous to let your trader know when their seeds will be on the way. If you've promised to mail on Monday, but something happened to delay that then email the trader to let them know when the seeds will be mailed...and keep that date! A good trader is a responsible trader. Good traders use bubblewrap or padded mailers to assure that the seeds are not crushed during their trip through the mail.