Seed Swap for Earth Day

In honor of Earth Day I would like to propose a seed swap. One advantage of a seed swap is that you can save money and still get a wide variety of plants in your garden and the seeds will get planted before they get too old to sprout.

To host a seed swap you will need:
• Small Envelopes
• Labels and Pens
• Location with table space
• Willing participants with non-hybrid seeds

Invite family, friends and neighbors to bring their extra seeds. You can make your swap into a bigger event by telling your guests to spread the word and bring their friends with them. By doing this you will have a greater variety of seeds to exchange.

Or you could keep it private and much more coordinated buy limiting it to a small group of friends and assign each person a basic garden staple like carrots, beans, corn or pea seeds; that way you can all save money on your basic seeds and still buy something unusual you’ve never tried before to share with you seed swapping buddies.

To save time instruct everyone to bring their extra seeds already packaged and properly labeled with planting instructions. Be prepared with envelopes and pens just incase someone needs them.

Decide before hand how you are going orchestrate the seed swap. There are several ways to do it. Some use a tally and ticket system others prefer to go by an honor code and trust that participants won’t take more seeds than they contributed. Be sure to plan ahead of time how you want to organize the actual exchange and any special rules or instructions so there is no confusion.

If there are any seeds left donate them to someone in need or to a local community garden.

Have Fun!



“Seed Swap” looks like in interesting documentary. Check out the trailer.
http://youtu.be/xUZ38FJfIhE


Comments appreciated!
How do you organize your seed exchange? What method works best? How could you improve on the next one?