Hi seemit22 As posted above, The Newbie Seed Swap is season and runs Winter-Spring. We are soliciting for seed donations for this year's Newbie Seed Packs. Without all our generous donors, we could not do this! Please note; For all those requesting newbie seed packs, we will ask for 6 Forever or 49 cent stamps and a mailing label with your name/address. We provide the bubble mailer. I Just took over this Newbie Seed Project this summer and hope to help alot of newbies. When I receive enough donations to offer the seeds to newbies, I will post under a new thread and let everyone know I'm going to start mailing these out. I cannot promise for fall planting, as this is generally a winter project when i will have more time. This thread is misleading as the heading is "newbie seeds available", but it's an old thread from Jan 2015 and I dont want to mislead anyone.

Hi Val, not sure if you have many free seeds left, but if you could add me to the list, it would sure be a blessing to me. I empathize with your loss, but so glad to hear you are able to get back into gardening, as it is my happy place, too. I am recently divorced, lost my home in the divorce, which I had spent many years planting so as to be more self sufficient. So starting over again. Has taken me a few years to recoup from my loss, but I know that gardening is going to be good for me, too.

I like to get my seeds from vendors that grew their plants in areas similar to mine, if possible (however, most places are pretty different). The reason I like to do this is acclimatization. If a plant gets used to growing in a greenhouse, or a vastly different region, it might take a few years of growing in your climate to get it acclimatized sufficiently. I think acclimatization to your own personal soil and water is as important as acclimatization to the climate, however. Seeds from my friend a couple miles away just don't grow the same in my soil. Even my neighbor's yard is different with seeds from the same seed packet. When I say they don't grow the same, I mean the production and taste is different. The plants can still seem healthy.

NEWBIE SEED PROJECT / UPDATE December 30, 2016 This year (as last), I started the Newbie seed offerings early in October. In December alone, I've had 24 requests and sent out most of those packages already. And I thought December would be a SLOW month!! I would GREATLY appreciate any seed donations if you have extra seeds you would like to donate to the newbies to help get them started. I need both vegetable/herb/edible seeds as well as flowers, but am currently out of enough veggie seeds to offer the newbies, and can only offer the flowers that I still have left. If you dont have any seeds, but would like to donate ziploc or paper seed packets ready to fill, address size labels for labeling seeds, bubble mailers or make a monetary donation, this would ALSO be GREATLY APPRECIATED. I have purchased seeds as well for newbies, to help round out some packages/add more variety on my dime. This is my way of 'paying it forward" and I spend alot of time prepping before packages can go out...Not that I am complaining. but an additional help would be GREAT! THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION! HAPPY NEW YEAR! Val