This is how the thread began but perhaps time to take another look? You can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq. You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services. How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! It is FREE and it only takes a second. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Whether you are for or against the war, our guys and gals over there need to know we are behind them.

What a great thread and since I've come out of my lurkdom here and have a fair amount of experience in packing seeds to trade/share, and have received seeds in, in a multitude of ways, I'll just add my 2 cents. I see there are certainly multiple ways and some consider one way to be the best, while others consider it to have cons. I don't think any one way is considerably better than another. As far as economical, the ones using pages from catalogs, or printer paper (new or used) are probably by far the most economical to make. What works well for one, might not work for another. What is economical (or considered to be) for one, might not be economical to another. Getting the seeds out of its packaging is yet another part of the equation. Resealing, if need be, is another part of the equation. There is patience (which I have little of) and time as well as convenience to be considered. I have and use the small zip lock baggies. They are found to be what works best for me. They are a little more than 2/3 cent each when I ordered 3000 of the the discounted Blue Line ones Here. Maybe Trudi has an even cheaper source, of ordering in bulk without having to order a million. This winter, I've pondered the problem of static electricity with certain seeds or with particularly tiny seeds like sedums and butterfly bushes. What I opted to do on those two are to wrap the seeds in a 4" square of tissue, folded and labeled, and then inserted in the zip baggie. Nice instructions and pics pitimpinai and monte. Thanks for sharing! I'm sure that many will benefit from them both. Now...you know my preferred way to pack the seeds that I send out and the cost, we'll move on to how I like to receive seeds packed. Like quilt said above, " I promise you if you send me a pack of seeds in a straw, an envelope, a zip lock baggie, a coin envelope, a bubble mailer, or a tin can I will throw them in dirt and water them just the same. " Whatever one chooses to send them in is fine by me. I do kind of like the zip baggies for bigger seeds, and either reuse or recycle them along with other plastic bags...yes I am OCD (or is it CDO?) when it comes to recycling. The brightly colored ones made from recycled catalogs always brighten my day when I see them. If the seeds are properly dried, I think that any kind of packaging is fine and not detrimental. #What is most economical for one person might not be to another person, variables being the purchase of zippies, coin envelopes, straws, printer paper, printer ink, stick on labeling of some sort. #What one prefers to pack in is indubitably not preferred by all, also for numerous reasons. As important as seed packaging is, I think that the labeling is of just as much or more importance, but that is maybe food for thought for another time and thread. Below is a pic of several of the packs of wonderful seeds I received in the 2009 WLOMWL swap. Lots of different packaging, and labeling. Something I had not seen before were glassine baggies and what looked like folded glassine. Both suited me fine/great because of what they contained. Happy gardening, collecting, sharing/trading, and dreaming of your 2010 gardens! Sue...rbb as Terenne said, "This thread is a great example of different strokes for different folks. I so agree. Oh...if you're still with me, my vote for the most economical ones would have to be those made from recycled paper. EEK...have I had too much coffee again? Sue...rbb and loquacious as usual. (kcqrna and monte, it was aliska12000 above that spoke of the rosary pliers in her post showing her potential seed sowing tools.)

Thanks to the info given out regarding sending boxes to APO addresses to a soldier or sailor. It's all right on the money. I was advised to go to my local post office and get the customs form, label and the largest APO prepaid box to use for my son's things. The box costs just $12.50 for me to send, and it's one of those "whatever you can get in there; it all ships for the same price" boxes. They have specific boxes in 3 sizes to send to military personal overseas, so ask for those special boxes. There are pre-printed labels on each box to fill out for the soldier's name, rank and address numbers (they're all numbers). Thanks to all your very, very helpful suggestions, I came back home with enough to fill 2 of these boxes (LOL!)! So, I'm sending off one tomorrow and the other next week. BTW, the post mistress at our post office informed me that parents have been telling her the Army is removing all beef jerky before sending the boxes onto our service men and women. She has no idea why, as they're not the restricted pork products, but advised me not to waste my money sending any. Rose: thank you for thinking of me. I'm holding up well enough, although I shed a few tears in the middle of Target this afternoon, when a soldier in uniform stopped to help me pick out some items for my son. Sometimes, the reality of it all shakes me to my core, but then I pull myself together and get on with it. Again, many thank for all your great suggestions. The soldier helping me today at Target was VERY impressed with them all. Me, too!! Lynn

“If they are Puerto Ricans they may be here because their country was devastated by a hurricane back in the fall and the federal government has done nearly nothing except to try to throw a $300 million no-bid contract to an unqualified and inept company in Montana owned by a neighbor of the Secretary of the Interior.” Bob, I couldn’t find what you were responding to when you posted this, but I assume you are responding to someone. However just to clarify, Puerto Rico is a Territory of the United States so there is really no their country vs. ours. Sadly, they are not represented in congress the way they should be, and frumpy is treating them like they are second or even third class citizens but they are also Americans and have every right to be here which a lot of people don’t seem to know. They also should have had the same type of emergency response people here in the states received. **** I think a lot of how someone feels about the illegal immigrants coming into this country is fairly dependent on where one lives. I realize that there are jobs that the illegal Mexicans do that no one else would want to, but one would also have to have blinders on to believe that illegal immigrants are not a drain on our resources as well. Our schools do not turn children away but as the DACA program has proven, there are lots of children (many of whom do not yet know English) in our schools. Our tax dollars teach them English and provide their education. Many illegal immigrants use fake or stolen social security numbers so they can pay taxes and so on too. Prior to recent years, that’s how they would pass off as legal. Yes we get that tax revenue, but the wages are small, so that tax amount is limited; plus under those circumstances that is another law that is being broken. My car has been hit several times by people who were unable to speak English, were uninsured and it was easy to assume that they were not here legally. Driving while uninsured is another law broken. Emergency rooms do see a high number of illegal immigrants because immigrants don’t have the monetary resourses to be insured. There’s no routine preventative care, no birth control and lots of babies which equals lots of unpaid hospital bills. Then there are the millions and millions of dollars crossing the border to support those families who stay behind. As a society, we are all expected to obey the laws we have in place and so should they. These are all facts. But...I get the poverty, and why they come here too. I lived it and know first hand how bad it is. When I was 17 I lived on a remote ranch in a small mud house built by hand, 100 miles outside of Zacatacus. I washed clothes in a river, traveled by horse and cooked our own grown food on a metal tin over a fire. I was there for almost a year and it’s a hard life. We have immigration laws to provide a balance that helps this country to prosper and stay strong. When someone comes here illegally, they are breaking the law. To have a blind eye to that is not fair to those who struggled to come here legally. Both may have something to offer to our society but only one has respected our laws. DACA IMO is separate from illegal immigration and resinding it is just plain wrong. As Tim Cook so eloquently put it, “DACA isn’t a political issue, it’s a moral issue”. We, as a country put DACA into motion, made a promise. To break that promise and use the information those people gave to us to kick them out is extremely dishonorable and embarrassing. It’s not who we are.