Seed Saving Circle 2025

[galina]

Still well before the major Christmas rush Jan.  Let's hope both packages turn up promptly.  Thank you for keeping us informed. 

[JanG]

I'm pleased to say all the parcels except Ruud's older seeds have now arrived. I hope to get them in the post very quickly now. Three of you are interested in experimenting with some of the older seeds but as that parcel seems stuck with Royal Mail still I think it's best if I despatch the main seed circle seeds as they are.

It's a phenomenal collection of seeds yet again. I haven't counted them yet but the photo shows what each person will get. This in fact is my share out, roughly grouped by type, and of course each person's will be different as I hope I've managed not to give anyone their own seeds back again! But I'm sure you'll agree that it's a brilliant collection. It includes huge numbers of French beans and tomatoes with perhaps not as many peas as one might expect. There are also more ornamentals than we've had in the past, a growing field for us, and, as well as good numbers of lettuce and peppers, there are some interesting one-offs such as okra, scorzonera, amaranth grain, beetroot, mangle and water melon. So much to look forward to!

[galina]

That is indeed a brilliant collection and just look at Markfield Rover's exquisit seed envelopes!  Oh WoW, just WoW!  Thank you Jan for the sneaky peek!

[markfield rover]

It's arrived! I will be filling my advent calendar!! Taking my time to enjoy ,research and drool. I will over Christmas post some notes on my contribution.
Huge thank you to JanG for making this possible and everyone else for being so generous.
Wishing you all the very best for the coming season.

[juliev]

My seeds have arrived too! Thank you so much everyone for another fabulous swap and Jan for all your hard work behind the scenes. 

[garrett]

The seeds have arrived! Thanks to everyone who participated and Jan for organising. I'm delighted to spot a few varieties that I already had on my  wish list. Very exciting!

[Vetivert]

Happy day! What a remarkable parcel this year. I'm so delighted to see some surprises in there. Thank you all so very much for your excellent contributions and for making this time of year extra special. Jan, as always, special thanks to you for the effort expended in organising this annual treat.

Season's Greetings!

[JanG]

I'm very pleased that all the UK parcels have arrived on schedule and have brought such delight.

Thank you very much to everyone for your efforts and for furthering the very worthy cause of seed-saving, diversity and preservation of varieties.

It has been raised that the number of adverts on A4A is annoying and whether it's worth relocating the seed circle to avoid them.

While there was quite a lot of traffic on A4A, it felt important to be open to a wider number of people to join the circle. Now that the seed circle is almost the only activity on A4A that reason for staying is much less strong.

The only other forum that I know of which could provide a home is Growing Food Saving Seeds. This forum, if you don't know it, has been a source of great inspiration to me in the past and is full of interesting discussions and information, but has also been inactive for some time. However, crucially it's ad-free.

Please could you consider whether you think that making a move would be a good idea. I would hate to lose people because of a relocation but it seems that we have a committed and quite stable membership. It would be good to know whether you find the adverts annoying. I think it might partly be affected by what kind of device you're using as to how easy they are to navigate round.Also I think some people have ad-blockers. Advice about those might also be helpful. But if, like me, you access the seed circle on laptop, tablet and phone, that might not be practical. But thoughts please .........

[galina]

In principle a very good idea.  And to make it work, a post on here that is monitored for replies at the start of the season and regularly answered if anybody wishes to join, is absolutely feasible.  And would allow new members to find us.

But, and unfortunately it is a big but, currently the very desirable GFSS site is overrun by spam posts and my attempts to get the list owner to clean up, have gone unanswered.  As the list owner seems to be not exactly present nor contactable, we have no way to communicate in case of trouble.  Quite unlike A4A which is supported well and where problems are generally sorted within hours or days.

Leaves the option to form a FB group.  Not very desirable, because posts may not show up reliably on member's feeds and it would need members to be proactive and check back on the right page, so they don't miss posts.  Doable however.  FB messenger, however, seems reliable and we could maybe have a group conversation on FB messenger.  Not sure exactly what search functions etc we could employ there, like we can on A4A or what other draw backs might be.  I freely admit that A4A on the phone (rather than my laptop with ad controls), has been a genuine pain during a recent hospital stay, where I had no choice but to use the phone. 

How do others see the pros and cons of what is available to us communication wise?

[juliev]

I have to concur, the ads on A4A are annoying and the PM function is unpleasant to navigate. Having said that, I only use A4A for the seed circle so it's not a deal breaker for me.

Growing Food Saving Seeds is, in my opinion, a very good "home" for the circle. I have probably read all the threads over the last few years. So much information and inspiration!

edit: just read Galina's post. It's sad... Is it possible for someone else to take over GFSS? I guess it would still need the current owner to respond and do something.

Not sure about FB.

[JanG]

I haven't found the spam too intrusive on GFSS but I think the fact that there's no contactable moderator is definitely worrying. I'm assuming that somebody is paying to maintain GFSS as, as far as I'm aware, there either has to be a payment or an acceptance of adverts. This would carry with it the risk that whoever is making a payment might withdraw that at some point without notice. Do correct me if this seems not to be the likely situation.

If we were going to use a chat medium, then I think more people use WhatsApp than Messenger and there are of course arguments against supporting Facebook (but probably WhatsApp too).

[markfield rover]

I have just had a peep at GFSS there is some brilliant posts but quite a few from TEMU which I'm guessing are spam! I do WhatsApp .

[Vetivert]

Hi Ruud, what is the species of the mayweed you included?

[garrett]

I access A4A on my phone and all I get is a pop up advert image occasionally, never a video so I don't find adverts intrusive.

I've read the Growing Food Saving Seeds forum in the past but have never been able to join. I don't use Facebook and frankly I'm unwilling to join it.

So my feedback is that I'm happy to continue with A4A.

A final suggestion would be that the Gardener's Corner forum seems quite active and doesn't currently have a seed circle that I've ever noticed. They were happy to welcome people who migrated over after the Gardener's World forum was shut down.