2023/2024 arrivals and departures

[Tormato]

Hi Gary, my package arrived and it was better than Christmas !!!! Love all the varieties, its going to be so tough to decide what to grow this year ! I hope you are feeling better and the warm spring weather shows up for you soon ! Thank you so very much for doing this wonderful swap for us again this year. I appreciate it so much, its a bright spot in an otherwise dreary cold winter.

Also, a special thank you to NYTomatoNewbie for all the fabulous flower seeds ! I am going to start planting them this weekend

A special thank you to NYTomatoNewbie, here, too.

While you did give me extra work ( I don't mind it) with all of your flowers, you did give me a possible solution to the flower dilemma that really slows the swap down. Perhaps it will have to mostly go to participants listing their flower donations, others selecting flowers from those listings, and the donor then bagging up flowers for the participant they are to go to. If a participant requests more than one flower from the donor, the donor should group all of those packs into one larger baggie, like NYTomatoNewbie has done for several people.

And, marigolds, sunflowers and zinnias (maybe a couple of other flower types) are popular enough to be sent in as in prior swaps.

[Moth1992]

I started logging this years tomatoes and so far counting last years swap i have more than 150 varieties in total and havent finished logging everything...

At 6 tomatoes per year unless i manage to buy land that is.... More than 25 years of tomatoes worth in only two MMMM swaps. And that is if I never repeat a variety!

So what do you all use to organize your seeds? I have random envelopes stuffed with seeds but that is becoming unproductive anytime I want to find something.

[MissS]

I started logging this years tomatoes and so far counting last years swap i have more than 150 varieties in total and havent finished logging everything...

At 6 tomatoes per year unless i manage to buy land that is.... More than 25 years of tomatoes worth in only two MMMM swaps. And that is if I never repeat a variety!

So what do you all use to organize your seeds? I have random envelopes stuffed with seeds but that is becoming unproductive anytime I want to find something.

I use 3 ring binders with baseball card sleeves. I now have five 4" binders to hold all of the seeds that I will never be able to swap or grow in my lifetime. I also keep a spreadsheet so that I don't have to go through the binders all of the time.

[GoDawgs]

I started logging this years tomatoes and so far counting last years swap i have more than 150 varieties in total and havent finished logging everything...

At 6 tomatoes per year unless i manage to buy land that is.... More than 25 years of tomatoes worth in only two MMMM swaps. And that is if I never repeat a variety!

So what do you all use to organize your seeds? I have random envelopes stuffed with seeds but that is becoming unproductive anytime I want to find something.

Like Miss S, I keep a spreadsheet with all of my stuff logged in. As for the seeds themselves I have a couple of ways they're stored. Newly acquired and other current seeds are grouped into ziplock bags (cukes in one bag, peppers in another etc) and those are kept in a large old metal breadbox. There are separate bags for regular tomatoes, dwarfs and micros. The packs in each bag are sorted alphabetically and bundled with rubber bands. Three bundles of micros in that bag! A-G, H-N and O-Z!

Long term storage is in the freezer in plastic freezer boxes with the snap-on top . I had to do something different with the slew of micro tomatoes though. I did a homemade mini filing system in a small freezer box so I could at least pull out a section and quickly find the seed I wanted. This was done for the first swap I was ever in, 2022 and believe me, it's really jammed now! And I'm up to four larger boxes in the freezer too, two for beans and corn, the others for everything else in the garden.

22.01.14 MMMM seeds filed for storage.jpg

[TomatoNut95]

Love the mini storage container! I keep all my tomatoes in a Ziploc bag in the freezer and keep all the varieties written on sheets of notebook paper.

[Stitchingmom]

I have mine in those plastic photo boxes with the smaller boxes inside. I have four stuffed fairly full of tomato seeds and two for other seeds and unknown tomato seeds. I mostly love tomatoes, and on a lesser scale cucumbers. I have other things I'd like to grow, but they never seem to get planted when I finish with my beloved tomatoes. I grew two beautiful peppers indoors in DWC in gallon jars over the winter, and will do that again. I have an exhaustive spreadsheet, so I can find whatever I want.

[GoDawgs]

Hmmm, I think I'm going to need a new mini filing box... for dwarf tomatoes!

[DriftlessRoots]

I keep track of my tomato seeds with a Microsoft Access database I created and store them in ziplock bags inside pockets made from junk mail envelopes cut in half. They're not alphabetized within each envelope but they're pretty easy to search through each letter for the time being. I don't freeze them but maybe I should? I use the same sort of database and filing for my peppers but there are a lot fewer of them.

Data Entry Form.PNG

IMG_9717.JPG

[Tormato]

Mine's a mess.

[Moth1992]

Dang i love seeing your filing systems!

I am currently storing my seeds in a dark storage room but maybe they should go in the freezer? Does it make a difference?

Finished logging all my big tomatoes, the micro situation is a mess though and will log those some other time.

[TomatoNut95]

I am currently storing my seeds in a dark storage room but maybe they should go in the freezer? Does it make a difference?

I keep all my seed in the freezer. I know tomato seeds last a very long time not being frozen but because I don't have room to plant all varieties each year, and a lot I've been given don't have years on them, plus I trade a lot, I like to keep the viability rate high. Maybe I should only freeze ones more than 4-5 years old and leave the others out but I don't like the thought of them scattered around. I'd rather have them all in one thing in case I wanted to grab it all in a rush to get out of the house.

As for paper lists, it's a mess. I have like 3 pages double sided of what I have. Beside the name I have the year (if stated) and who gave it to me or where I bought it. Then I have a ton of extra pages sorting by their color. One page for Red, one page for Pink...Yellow...so forth. Beside the name on the list I put what type: indeterminate or determinate or dwarf. Then on the other side I put either Beefsteak, round, oxheart or cherry. Also if I have the info I'll put country of the varieties origin. Also I have an extra page for dwarfs.
Messy, ain't it?

[Tormato]

Dang i love seeing your filing systems!

I am currently storing my seeds in a dark storage room but maybe they should go in the freezer? Does it make a difference?

Finished logging all my big tomatoes, the micro situation is a mess though and will log those some other time.

Does it make a difference? Yes and no. If one is not storing for long term, using fresh tomato seeds within about 4 to 5 years, it likely won't make a difference. I've found that at year 6, with room temp stored seeds, I start to have problems, lower germination, rarely no germination, 10 -30 days to germinate, headless seedlings, etc...

One freezing drawback could be the moisture content of the seeds. If not thoroughly dry, freezing them might destroy them. And, of course, when thawing them, containers should not be opened until the seeds are thawed.

The best solution is to keep some frozen and some "cool", but that's double the work.

[steve ok]

How long until another set of departures? I started getting anxious when my wish list was removed.

[Tormato]

How long until another set of departures? I started getting anxious when my wish list was removed.

That means it's sealed and ready to go. It looks like I'll be able to get to the PO on Tuesday.

[Stitchingmom]

I am currently storing my seeds in a dark storage room but maybe they should go in the freezer? Does it make a difference?

I keep all my seed in the freezer. I know tomato seeds last a very long time not being frozen but because I don't have room to plant all varieties each year, and a lot I've been given don't have years on them, plus I trade a lot, I like to keep the viability rate high. Maybe I should only freeze ones more than 4-5 years old and leave the others out but I don't like the thought of them scattered around. I'd rather have them all in one thing in case I wanted to grab it all in a rush to get out of the house.

As for paper lists, it's a mess. I have like 3 pages double sided of what I have. Beside the name I have the year (if stated) and who gave it to me or where I bought it. Then I have a ton of extra pages sorting by their color. One page for Red, one page for Pink...Yellow...so forth. Beside the name on the list I put what type: indeterminate or determinate or dwarf. Then on the other side I put either Beefsteak, round, oxheart or cherry. Also if I have the info I'll put country of the varieties origin. Also I have an extra page for dwarfs.
Messy, ain't it?

Just the thought makes me nervous. I am nearly to 1500 varieties. I NEED my spreadsheet!!

[coolbythecoast]

Yes, receiving seeds was just like Christmas, I couldn't wait and checked the mailbox every day as soon as the mailman left. What a fabulous selection! Gary made sure I received the types and varieties I requested, so thank you Gary and thanks to everyone who contributed. I am growing 50+ varieties this year, so hopefully I am growing somebody's favorite to contribute next year.

[Tormato]

departures...

CO Th C
MI Or M
OH Sp M
OR Di A
WA Kv S
WI No M

Hopefully, I can wrap it up early next week.

[midwestfarmwife]

My package of seeds arrived, and I'm in Seed Heaven! What a selection of tomato seeds - unbelievable! Also included are zinnia seeds and a paper envelope stuffed with perennial and annual flower seeds that took a lot of time to put together. Thank you so much to whomever contributed those and another special thank you to Gary, who despite not feeling his best, came through for us once again. Thank you to everyone who provided such special varieties of tomatoes. It never ceases to amaze me just how many there are. How do we ever choose? Would be interested to hear of everyone's selection process. I try to start a paste tomato variety, cherries in a couple of different colors, and slicers in all the colors I have: red, bi-color or orange, striped, yellow, pink, and a dark variety. How do all of you use your tomatoes? I have a gadget that clamps to my countertop. All I have to do is feed chunks of tomatoes in it, turn the handle, and the seeds and skin go out the chute while the juice goes into a bowl. It's very quick and works great. I then freeze it to use whenever I need it. I also put some in my freeze dryer once and stored in mylar bags to last for 25 years.

[DriftlessRoots]

Package just arrived. I'm going to need another garden! Thank you for doing this!

[Moth1992]

How do we ever choose? Would be interested to hear of everyone's selection process. I try to start a paste tomato variety, cherries in a couple of different colors, and slicers in all the colors I have: red, bi-color or orange, striped, yellow, pink, and a dark variety.

I dont have a lot of space so i aproach it slightly like an experiment. For example in the last 3 years I learned that:
Early tomatoes do best in my climate, mid season tomatoes ripen only in september/october but are tastier and late tomatoes wont ripen in time.
That I am not a fan of yellow or orange tomatoes.
That i dont care for sauces and preserves, I want fresh tomatoes.
That I dont have space for more than 6 plants in my plot and a few micros in my balcony.

So i go through my spreadsheet and select 3 early tomatoes and 3 mid season tomatoes.
And from each of those two groups I select purples, reds pinks and dark varieties.