Hi all, The seed exchange officially closed for donations yesterday. This means if you’ve been procrastinating sending me seed you need to get it out in the mail tomorrow! I expect this next distribution will offer over 100 genera so I need to get all the seed in sooner rather than later. I’m having major foot surgery later this fall and I want to get the seed exchange wrapped up beforehand because I will be incapacitated for several weeks. A few notes regarding sending me seed. Please enclose a note with your email. You’d be amazed how often I have questions of the donor. I can also acknowledge receipt of the seed. It is best to pack seed in paper packets unless your seed needs to be kept moist. I’ve had moldy seed arrive in plastic packets. So far it has just been surface mold on a few seeds but there is no guarantee the mold won’t go deeper. Some of you have very carefully individually packaged seed in little plastic bags. Besides the potential mold problem I’ve found these plastic packets slip down and hide in my seed trays. I found a Geranium bowkeri plastic seed packet hiding after the last seed exchange. Never fear it will be listed in the next exchange for some lucky person. So paper really is better for most seed. If you are willing to pack your own seed please use envelopes no wider than 2”x3” so they fit in my trays. If you don’t have any appropriate envelopes I’m happy to mail you some. I get my envelopes for NARGS so if you’ve gotten seed from their exchange you know what they look like. Elmer’s Disappearing Purple glue sticks works great for sealing. You don’t need to label each envelope if you’re individually packaging. Just label the top envelope and clip or rubber band them together. Save yourself some time. My last topic is postage costs. As you know PBS reimburses seed and bulb donors for their postage costs (rounded to nearest dollar). I believe we’re the only organization that does that. This means that every dollar we reimburse is money that could go to other uses such as research stipends. I have noticed a lot of donors send their seed via USPS Priority Mail. The post office loves to get you to use Priority Mail and displays the boxes prominently. And, as a bonus hands, them out free. Unfortunately Priority mail is probably the most expensive way to send seed. It is also not generally necessary. Seed and bulbs are nature’s germ plasm storage mechanism. The extra time in transit for first class mail really won’t hurt most seeds or bulbs. I’ve noticed most of the seed I receive comes from California. To Oregon it takes, at most, a day or two more for First Class. Your seeds would have to weigh an awful lot make Priority Mail a cheaper option. For example, earlier this year I sent my son in Berkeley multiple jars of homemade jam. It still would have been cheaper for me to ship via First Class mail. So think about your society and its bottom line when you go to ship seeds and bulbs. Send them First Class not Priority Mail. If you have questions about if your seeds or bulbs should be an exception please contact Bridget or me. Obviously if you don’t care about postage credit send them however you want. Just let me know you don’t want postage credit. Finally I’ve just realized some of the emails to Seedyjan1@gmail.com <mailto:Seedyjan1@gmail.com> are not showing up in my inbox properly. Sometimes they show up days late. I have no idea what’s going on and will have to poke around. In the meantime please send emails to janjeddeloh@gmail.com <mailto:janjeddeloh@gmail.com>. Thanks for reading all of this, Jan _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> PBS Forum https://…