Glad to help! I saved those articles too, for reading at leisure. Thanks for prompting me to go hunt!
You might consider keeping some notes as you pick out your varieties, especially after you've tried some of them. You could write up your notes - or lists of recommended varieties for altitude - as an article or tip. Dave and Trish give acorns for articles of all different lengths, including "tips" just a few lines long. And we all appreciate learning from other peoples' research and experience.
Littlecheryl said: ... Once I get the database complete I will be starting my trade list. I will have to count my seeds and pre-pack/label them. ...
That is key! The times I've listed some seed "because I know I have lots of that left", I either have fewer than I thought, or can't find the big bag they were in. Now I try to follow the rule: "find it and count it, THEN list it!".
Those "HAVE" lists are precious!
>> Just curious if 15-20 counts are the norm?
Sizes range all over the map. If it's a perennial or re-seeding flower, probably people only need enough seeds that they are sure to get several seedlings, and they can multiply the plant from that start.
For annuals and vegetables, I think it's nice to include at least enough to give it two good trials, like 5-10 feet of row each time, if practical. And cost can be a factor for purchased seeds.
I mostly go by how much seed I have. If I have lots of one variety, I enjoy packing up fat trade packets with 1/8th tsp or 1/4 tsp of small seeds each. That might let someone plant a spring row, a fall row, and have enough left for next year if they liked it. I do want to use or give away all of a variety before it becomes old enough to have declining vigor and germination rates.
When I get a full ounce of lettuce seed, it usually costs $4 to $7.50. I sometimes divide that up in 1/2 tsp pkts, and will combine those into full tsp packets if they get several years old. I could have split that into 16 pkts, almost 2 grams each, and each pkt would only have cost me 25 - 50 cents plus shipping.
I also bought (recently) three fancy new varieties of lettuce, each $3.00 for 150 seeds. I have to decide whether to split each three ways (50 seeds costing $1 per pkt), or maybe 5 ways (30 seeds = 60 cents) or 7 ways (20 seeds = 43 cents). But I'm definitely saving at least 50 seeds for myself!
It's a tough decision whether to offer two people 50 vegetable seeds each, or four people 25 seeds each. 25 heads of looseleaf lettuce is barely enough to know if you like them plus save some seeds. But 25 big heads of Romaine might be plenty.
Frank Morton's relatively new "Flashy" lettuce cultivars look pretty and are unusual hybrids of different lettuce types, so I'd like to spread them around. But I'd rather make two people happy then make four people grumpy! In the past, I've had small commercial packets of some unusual variety, and got out my 1/32nd tsp measuring spoon so I could split it several ways. Then every time I looked at those skimpy packets, I felt cheap. Now I lean more the other way when I have enough seeds to go around.
Lettuce (Lactuca sativa 'Flashy Lightning')
Lettuce (Lactuca sativa 'Flashy Green Butter Oak')
Lettuce (Lactuca sativa 'Flashy Butter Gem')
http://www.rareseeds.com/flash...
(Their coloring is like
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Lettuce (Lactuca sativa 'Forellenschluss') )
