How To Start A Seed Swap

[Northmountain]

ehow post

Step 1
Start: You can start a neighborhood seed swap with relative ease. It's a perfect way for making sure that you never run out of plants for your garden. It's a good way to get the vegetables or flowers that you've been wanting without having to go purchase them. In addition to all your friends and family, invite area school horticulture classes and teachers, library personnel, and any gardening clubs that your particular town has. Calling around to different schools and gardening centers may also land you a speaker for the event, which is always a good draw for stray people to come and join in. Once you have figured out when it's going to be and who you will be inviting then you can move on to Organize.


Step 2
Organize: Start by setting up a day and time for your event, a few months ahead if possible. Good times are spring and autumn, so that you are either opening or closing a growing season.

Make sure that you find a suitable site. Your house can be fine if there is plenty of parking, or see if a local church or community center will allow you to set up. You will need tables, chairs, pens, boxes, etc.

Advertise the event by printing up flyers to distribute, send a write-up to any free ad papers your community has (The Post, Seven Hills Shopper), post to internet groups in the area. Google "seed swap groups" and you will find a good number of message boards and forums for seed swappers who may be from your area.

Have a donation jar set up for people to contribute. This is good for any advertising costs you may have incurred. You may decided to use the donation jar for your favorite charity or for setting up the next seed swap event. Either way, most never question it.

Get seed donations from area nurseries if they have spares to give away for "advertising" their store.

Categorize your seeds by family. Place all the members of a specific group together for easier browsing. Be sure to make small signs to differentiate between your vegetable table, your herb, and your flower table.

Be kind to people who don't bring anything to swap, but try to set up a one-for-one ticket system. (For every one seed pack they bring, they can take one) Limit them to only 5 of a particular seed type so that you will still have plenty to go around. Also, make sure that they aren't bringing commercial seed. This is for out-of-the-garden non-hybrid open pollinated seeds that need to be specially marked.

Have beverages, set up a cooler of canned drinks for sale so that people will be able to stay longer. You may even consider having small wrapped baked goods.

Step 3
Donate any leftover seed to seed banks to promote good will.

[Oregon Pioneer]

My extended family, especiallly on my wife's side are also preppers. Everyone of us being on the lookout for good deals has kind of evolved into a co-op of sorts. I have a brother-in-law who has never not turned a stranger into a friend after being in a room with them for five minutes. On Saturdays he'll take drives through the country and visit with farmers along the way. He's honest and straight up in saying he has an extensive family group who are trying to build up a year's supply of food. He'll then ask them if they would be interested in selling to him for the same wholesale prices the grainaries pay them. So far, every farmer has quickly said, you bet. And while he's buying 500 to 1000 pounds of beans (garbanzo, lentil, navy, pinto), potatoes or wheat at a time, various ward members have also reaped from this blessing and have joined in scouting out crops we can buy up.

While not a seed swap per se, buying directly from the farmer cuts out the grainary, wholesaler, and the super market. Yeah you can't buy cool whip and jello using this method, but you do save tons of money buying the staples of a year supply of food that will last for years. Be forewarned if the farmers don't have a fruitsand up, they'll probably not want to waste their time selling 25 pounds of potatoes to you. Case in point, this brother-in-law bought 1600 asparagus roots this spring for new asparagus patches for $100. I'm not sure if this online community appreciates this number, but that's a lot of asparagus to plant. We divvied these 1600 up between four families. I don't have the garden in like I want this year because I've spent so much time planting asparagus roots. What's nice about them is that they're perenials that will produce for over 20 years. I later went to a nursery in Salem and found these same asparagus roots "on sale" for 99 cents each, down from $1.25. See the savings?

On another occasion a few years back, we had a Bishop in the stake next to ours who would send his business products east on his companies semi-truck. Coming back through the grain belt of Eastern Oregon he would buy 20,000 pounds of wheat at a time and then offer it to anyone at the cost the farmer charged him. He did this twice and I know members from two stakes who stocked up. I haven't heard of him organizing a third shipment because I think everyone who wants the wheat now has it coming out of their ears for a price that was a fraction of what they normally would have paid. Continuing with what Northmountain said, networking is the key to all of this, "ask and ye shall receive." Just so no one would ever get their feelings hurt, if you form up some kind of a co-op or group buy like this make sure everyone knows going in to it as to what the costs will be including any incidentals like fuel costs, should they be added.