So, I have a bag in the shed with a dried zinnia from last year, multiple seed heads on it. My intention has been to collect seeds and put them in little packets to give away here in my neighborhood. We've got a Garden Walk coming up soon so I figured I had better check the seeds for viability before going to all that work.

Results:



This is the wet paper towel in a plastic bag method.

They looked so perky and eager, I couldn't resist:




I expect they'll root right through that wet paper towel; they'd already begun to.

Looks like your neighborhood will be beautiful with Zinnias in a while. I love these....they are so easy to start, the rabbits don't eat them, and they bloom all season. What's not to like?

Well, I got real tired of this orange one last year, LOL! ORange everywhere! Blargh! hahahaa!

This year I am making sure we have a number of colors and I have several colors of cactus-flowered zins growing out right now, starting to color up too.

The bees and butterflies just love them whatever color they are.

very nice

I love zinnias!! How pretty the neighborhood will look if everyone grows them!

Then I better get cracking with my zin seed packing.. LOL!

We may get rained out for our Garden Walk! But I will still give these seeds away, somehow. I'll keep you posted.

We are not going to get rained out but it was touch and go all week. Today was dry. Tomorrow has scattered thunderstorms forecast, I think just for the afternoon but who knows?

So anyway I packed up 12 little glassine envies of seeds and ran out of patience for the cleaning and packing. That was because I didn't get to it til this evening! But if I have twelve people who want seeds I will be surprised. And if there are more who want than I have packets for, well, I'll get them some seeds somehow!

I'll report in after the event is over. I have the seeds I test-germinated growing in a pot, and there happens to be a zinnia start that volunteered in a place where it will be easy to show people what they look like when they come along past that initial sprouting stage.

Realized I forgot! to follow up here.

Our garden walk had four visitors. Two of whom were my next door neighbors.

I gave zin seeds to the other two and will indeed give the rest of them away, just not sure how. In any case, the garden walk itself needs to be better publicized if it's going anywhere but I don't know that I will get involved with that. Meanwhile, we are thinking about siting a Little Free Library at our house. There is one design that has a separate box for sharing seeds and recipes, as well as books. That might happen.

http://littlefreelibrary.org/

Kyla, I love the idea of that "little free library" -- whether for books, recipes, seeds, or what have you ! I wonder how that would go over in my area; we're rural, about 10 miles from town, and actually a kind of cohesive township community. I think our township hall could be a great place to set one up -- might have to approach the board about that !!

Let me know if you do? I love the whole idea of it.

So, this may go a bit outside the purpose of the Seeds forum, but I wanted to post that we are definitely doing the Little Free Library thing, and our version will include a seed exchange (I hope other people will use it!) I will definitely put some of the zin seeds out to share. The structure was ordered today from their website, and we've got somebody preparing to put in the post it will be mounted on; he's getting the city to send the folks to check for underground lines that might need to be protected from a dig.

So moving forward with that project.

Kyla, I think that is a GREAT idea.

You might want to list your local seed library at
http://www.seedlibrarian.com/


"Would you like your seed library included on this map
or do you have additional information
you'd like included on your listing?
Email seedlibrarian at gmail dot com "

Rick, thanks so much, I had no idea that existed! I will definitely check it out and see if what we end up doing is listable there. Cool!

I don't think any seed library is too small for them.

They used to list one near me that, as far as I could tell, never actually had any seeds in stock.

Oh,hahaha! Well, once we get set up here, I'll no doubt list us then. Honestly, I have no idea if people will exchange books, let alone seeds, but one can but try, right? And I can for sure always keep the little seed box stocked, with something or other, even if no one replaces what they take.

It's going to be a couple of months, apparently, before we get our structure anyway.

Wasn't that long at all. Got installed today.





That drawer in there is for seed exchange. Hrm. They sent a lovely generous selection of summer vegetable seeds from Seed Savers Exchange. Hrm.

So for now I just put a note in the drawer saying "Watch this space! Seed Exchange coming soon!" Until I figure out how to work it.

Kyla: That is incredible! What a beautiful little exchange you've created. Hope it does really well in your community. Please keep us posted.

very pretty!!!

Thanks! And I am SO excited to report that people are already using the library. Books taken, books added.

I started the seed sharing part today, very very low key. I have zinnia seeds and also just gathered Cosmos sulphureus seeds which I packed up and wrote a short set of instructions. These can grow right now and make flowers this season, so it seemed a good place to begin.

That looks terrific, Kyla !! Did you advertise it in some way ?