Interest in seed trading?

I like to get my seeds by trade. There doesn't seem to be a convenient seed library nearby. I might be open to a local swap event, but I'm really thinking by mail.

One kind of trade I might like to get in on (I think) is called a seed train. Andy puts a variety of seeds into a package and mails to the first person on a list. (Bill) Bill takes out what he wants, adds in some of his stash, and mails the package to Clara, who does the same → Donald → Ellen → Frank, etc. Finally Zeke does his thing and sends it back to Andy. I'm a little sketchy on details like how does everyone get the addresses without posting them publicly.

I'm also good with one on one mail trades, though there are probably fewer cool surprises.

Finally, I'm not just looking for new seeds, I'm also looking for motivation. If anyone is interested in trading, I'll be forced to inventory my seeds, and probably start a germination test. These need to be done anyway.

My gardening and seed saving philosophies are very much like Joseph Lofthouse's. I allow crossing. I want crossing. However, I garden smaller, and am less motivated than Joseph. Consequently, my seed stash is a lot like his would be, if he drew from a shallower gene pool and was lazy. My seeds are diverse. Some of them are becoming landraces. (They would BE landraces, if I culled more ruthlessly.) Some have Joseph's landraces in their ancestry.

Let me know if you'd like to trade, or to see a list and consider trading. Or if you have thoughts on making the seed train work. (Struck out on a web search. It seems seed train is also the name of lab procedure.) Or if you think it's past time for seed trading and I should wait until fall.

Would be interested to know what you have, and what you are looking for. Though not at all sure I am up to a seed trade right now personally, but still would be curious.

I have been doing something similar with Joseph's stuff. A lot of it has been combined with stuff I already had going or added to since I got it from Joseph.

Though I plan to revert to some of Josephs pure strains and grow them out isolated in 2020.

William Schlegel wrote:Would be interested to know what you have, and what you are looking for.

I'll get started on my inventory. I'll try to have something up tomorrow.

The seed trains that I have participated in generally have a coordinator, who receives everybody's addresses, and directs each person where to send the package next. A time limit for having the package is usually applied, something like 3 days. Often times, the coordinator will receive seeds from most of the participants at the beginning of the train.

Here's what I can spare for trading. I'll get back with you about what I'd like to get. Some of the names are my own. Ask if you have questions.

Amaranth:
Red 2017

Turnip:
Mixed 2016 (Needs Germination Test)

Beans:
Dry Mixed 2015
Green Bean Mixed 2014
Green Bean Mixed 2016
Last Stand* 2019 From volunteers
KY Pole year unknown
Scarlet Runner 2017
Tepary 2013 From Joseph Lofthouse
Tepary 2015
Tepary 2018

Watermelon:
Lofthouse Landrace 2016
Mixed 2015

Buckwheat:
2019
old, undated (Needs Germination Test)

Carrot:
Joseph Lofthouse Landrace 2016

Corn:
Hopeful Indian / Sweet Cross 2017
Painted Mountain 2017
Strawberry Popcorn year unknown

Cotton:
Transylvanian** 2015
Transylvanian Aquaponic*** 2018

Cucumber:
Mixed 2015

Garlic Chives:
2017

Orach:
Unknown 2014 (Needs Germination Test)

Peas****:
General Population 2017
Proto Heat Tolerant 2017
Proto Heat Tolerant 2019

Peppers:
Gypsy 2014
Jimmy Nardello 2015
Ivory Bell 2019 (Needs Germination Test)
Mild 2018
Mixed Non-bell 2015
Orange Bell 2019

Radish:
Assorted 2017

*Last Stand Beans: I planted a bunch of kinds of beans together. Mostly pole beans. Mostly vulgaris, the same species as green beans and most shelling or dry beans, like in chili or ham and beans. I picked them as they reached green bean stage most of the summer. I removed a lot of the ones that were too stringy. I didn't finish that process. I left a lot at the end of the season, for the next year's seeds. I left them too long, and they got wet and a lot got moldy. I finally started removing the pods that looked best and trying to salvage some seeds. Just the ones that survived, unmoldy, on the vine all winter. Hence the name. I changed strategy before ever planting those saved seeds. I don't even know where they went. I abandoned them because a crap load of the ones I didn't clean up volunteered. All of these seeds came from those volunteers.

**Transylvanian Cotton: Coming back from vacation in Destin Florida, I was seeing lots of fields of stubble and lots of cotton in the ditches. Must've been just after harvest. Nobody really grows cotton around us. I was curious to see it grow, if it would grow. I figured the seeds were inside the fluff, since that seems to be the bloom. We kept watching for a spot that seemed like the right spot to pull over and gather some. When we were almost out of Louisiana and into Arkansas, I figured I better just do it, since I didn't know when we'd be too far north and lose the chance. We pulled over and I gathered a big handful. We didn't really know what town(s) we might be near. Just a mile or two later, we see a water tower that says "Transylvania". A few minutes later we drove through the metropolis of Transylvania Louisiana. Okay, it was kinda small. Both city limit signs were on opposite sides of the same post, and the population sign was a mirror...

***Transylvanian Aquaponic Cotton: Same story, but in 2018, I grew it in my aquaponics.

****Proto Heat Tolerant Peas and General Population Peas: All my peas started out as Joseph Lofthouse's landrace. General Population are the ones that do best when planted in early spring like normal. Proto Heat Tolerant started as the last ones to die in the heat one year. Since then I've tried to plant them in heat that should sift out the genetics. They're doing decently for peas in the summer, but always something happens to slow down the selection; either a cold front comes in and we have a few weeks in the 80s instead of 90s and 100s, or like last year, the pole beans nearby outgrew them and partially shaded them. Plant these in the heat and your mileage may vary.

My want list:

Sunflowers - Anything different from the Mamoth Russian and Black Oil types is a plus; I'm well stocked on those.

Tillage radishes

Anything great for cover cropping - Good fodder for chickens or ruminants is a plus.

Flowers - Pollinator attracting is a plus. Perennial is a plus.

Bug proof winter squash - I can't get a crop of any kind of squash (or cucumber) because the squash bugs and vine borers annihilate them. This includes moschata.

Miscanthus grass - Hardy in zone 6.

Comfrey - One of the not super invasive ones. Russian, or one of the bockings?

I like diversity, and I like unusual. Maybe you have something I haven't thought of?

I realize that a few of those things will probably not be in seed form. Which reminds me, I have a few cloves of Chesnok Red garlic to share. They were grown from bulbils. I split my population into a bed for seed production and one for bulb production. These are, of course, from the bulb bed, but the same garlic in the other bed has been producing seed reliably.

I also have some other corn that wasn't really ready for the list, but could be shared in small quantities.

Sweet corn... grex? I filled a scoop at the feed store with a few seeds of every sweet corn they had in bulk. (You should see their faces when you do that.) I planted out a patch, and only harvested at fresh eating stage once. After the summer, when I took the stalks down, I removed the remaining ears. I sorted them out and kept the ones that filled out the best and had the least bug damage. They're in a bucket in my seed fridge, so I can easily plant ear-to-row.

Some leftovers from trying to get the hardiness of indian corns into a sweet corn. The project isn't finished, and these leftovers look to be from the first summer. The indian corn was detassled, but seeds grown from it still seem like indian corn. The rest is just random sweets.

Some leftovers from trying to breed a popcorn with red white and blue on the same ear. I think I planted the white between the red and blue, and detassled it. I don't think I've grown popcorn since, so results could be interesting. Before requesting this, please note: 1) My blue popcorn was saved from a previous growout where it was planted with indian corn. Mostly it grew the same tiny blue popcorn, but there were about three plants that grew bigger ears with more colors. 2) In a previous season, before I got any red popcorn, (I have strawberry popcorn now.) I tried to make one by growing white popcorn with any red kernels I could find in my indian corn. Some of that's still in the mix. Probably the three huge mostly red ears that are in that bucket.

Interesting about the squash bugs wiping out your cucurbits. I don't have squash bugs.

I do have a population of I think its mixed mospermia and agrosperma both from Joseph. It had possible opportunity to cross with Joseph's maximoss last year and vice versa. Can't remember if Agrosperma is supposed to be more resistant to squash bugs than moschata. Though I haven't cut them open yet to extract the seeds.

William Schlegel wrote:I do have a population of I think its mixed mospermia and agrosperma both from Joseph. It had possible opportunity to cross with Joseph's maximoss last year and vice versa. Can't remember if Agrosperma is supposed to be more resistant to squash bugs than moschata. Though I haven't cut them open yet to extract the seeds.

When you do, I'd be interested if you have a lot. If you don't I'd rather see them sent to where they can be increased, rather than sending them here into a possible dead end. I'd hate to be the guy that lost those genetics for everyone.

T Melville wrote:

William Schlegel wrote:I do have a population of I think its mixed mospermia and agrosperma both from Joseph. It had possible opportunity to cross with Joseph's maximoss last year and vice versa. Can't remember if Agrosperma is supposed to be more resistant to squash bugs than moschata. Though I haven't cut them open yet to extract the seeds.

When you do, I'd be interested if you have a lot. If you don't I'd rather see them sent to where they can be increased, rather than sending them here into a possible dead end. I'd hate to be the guy that lost those genetics for everyone.

Oh I wouldn't send you all of them so no need to worry about loosing them! In fact it would be interesting to know if they can resist those bugs, they are liable to migrate here sometime. I certainly have plenty to share. I opened two to check photo attached. Got 8 brown seeds out of the first a yellow one and probably a couple hundred classic agrosperma looking seeds out of the second a big green and white with a handle. Have another big one and maybe five or more little ones to open. I don't really need them for food because I am way behind this year on eating the maximas and moschatas. So I should just open them all for the seed. Maybe can do that Thursday.

I guess I do have Lofthouse Mospermia and Agrosperma as MIA for 2020 on my piece of printer paper with my handwritten analysis of such things. So maybe trade is the only source for that in 2020.

So in 2019, I grew a patch of Mospermia/Agrosperma/Maximoss

Then I grew a patch of Moschata including gen 2 Lofthouse, a F2 Thai cross from a California trading partner, and a squash called Autumn's Choice an F1 hybrid.

So yesterday I grabbed the rest of the Mospermia and started cutting them open. I found a couple that had some orange in the flesh and thought, oh I better seperate those because it could be a sign of Lofthouse Moschata's dark orange flesh starting to segregate out.

I went back downstairs and shoot I found two more mospermia. So I took them upstairs and cut them. Uh the big one was as dark as Lofthouse moschata inside with a stringy flesh texture. Pale yellow and stripey on the outside. Now my squash can get a little mixed up in storage. So the possibilities are: mospermia partial genetic jackpot, Thai Cross F2, or Autumn's Choice.

It's actually too dark of flesh for autumn's and too non-uniform. It could very well be Thai cross F2. Or mospermia. Now if we could just get rid of the stringy texture. Some of the Thai cross have that same texture.

I think both the Thai cross and the Autumn's choice have some possibly ancient Agrosperma ancestry.  

So I guess that squash seed will end up in an envelope to be grown out again sometime, but not this year.

More relevant to this discussion the Mospermia/Agrosperma will be dry in a few days.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
The seed trains that I have participated in generally have a coordinator, who receives everybody's addresses, and directs each person where to send the package next. A time limit for having the package is usually applied, something like 3 days. Often times, the coordinator will receive seeds from most of the participants at the beginning of the train.

This thread has generated one trade by mail. A good one. But It may be time to expand. So, being my first seed train, I want to put some limits on this to keep it from becoming too big of a pain in the butt. If it doesn't come together within those limits, then I have an "out". I'm open to suggestions, and willing to amend this. Tentatively, terms include:
1) 8 to 10 participants, opting in within one week from this post. Hopefully that's enough to make it fun, but not enough for me to overlook important details.
2) Within one week of announcing that the seed train will be moving forward, each participant mails a minimum of three seed packs to me, to be the original contents of the train. Please provide tracking numbers. This could possibly be waved for someone who doesn't have a seed stash?
3) Upon receipt of the last packages, I have three days to make my selections & trades before mailing to the first person who asked to participate. Upon receipt, that person has three days to repeat, sending to the second person, etc. Again, let's provide tracking numbers. I'm a little fuzzy on these details: Does the coordinator choose / swap first or last? When someone removes their selected seeds from the train, is it customary to put something back in, so the train doesn't empty? If we keep the train full, what happens to the remaining seeds at the end?
4) Addresses will be Communicated via Purple Moosage, when necessary. Alternately, I don't mind gathering your addresses from the packages sent in the begining. Or setting up a throwaway email where you can email me. I would then email you back from my real email address to exchange snail-mail addresses. That way we get the security of email, without my email address being posted on line with a big "Spam me, spam me!" sign on it.

So, give me your opinion(s) or opt in, if you like.

The seed trains that I have participated in often share bulk seed. You take out a pinch of any variety you want, and forward the rest of the packet on to the next recipient.

If anyone needs squash, tomato, or sweet corn seed in a grex or land race style I could probably spare some.

I seeded 300 Texas Onions three weeks ago from Ebay and not a one germinated (yeah I ordered the cheapest one)

Burl Smith wrote:I seeded 300 Texas Onions three weeks ago from Ebay and not a one germinated (yeah I ordered the cheapest one)

My bad, they finally came up. (The warmer days in late winter were not enough to warm the raised beds I guess)

My potato onions have 20 seed heads; an S.A.S.E could get you some (I don't know how long it takes them to mature)

20 Little laurel Rd.
Richwood, WV 26261

T Melville wrote:I can't get a crop of any kind of squash (or cucumber) because the squash bugs and vine borers annihilate them. This includes moschata.

Maybe a few years of not trying reduced my pest pressure? I don't know changed, but I'm back in the cucumber business. Got squash out too, but it's still very small. Doesn't look bug damaged, though.