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Last winter, I had planned to host a “Midwinter Tea Party & Seed Swap” at my home, but circumstances changed, and I had to simplify my arrangements. Instead, the Mid-Atlantic Gardening Forum found themselves invited to gather at a local restaurant for a “Chinese Tea Party & Seed Swap,” and it was a great success! I hope the tips and suggestions from our event will inspire you to put together a similar gathering in your area.
The previous "Plant Party" article focused on tips for hosting an informal DG gathering in your home or at a location where all the logistical details were up to you. With everybody pitching in, such gatherings are pretty easy to put together and an awful lot of fun on the day of the event. But there's an even easier way to get a group of DGers together for an afternoon. Let a local restaurant handle most of the logistics for you!
In most areas, you can find restaurants with private rooms, used for meetings and family celebrations. If it's not a buffet restaurant like Chef Lin in Frederick where we gathered for a "Chinese Tea Party and Seed Swap" last February, then you can often make arrangements for a simple catered meal. Unless you'll have a small group, it's easiest to have a fixed price arrangement rather than trying to have two dozen people order from the menu.
Be sure to chat up the owner or manager when you're making arrangements for your gathering. Explaining about DG ahead of time helps a lot when people unexpectedly show up with plants and cuttings at what the manager had thought was going to be a genteel seed swap. Still, it's probably best to try to limit this sort of event to seed swapping, by and large.
The manager at Chef Lin was very helpful, letting me come in ahead of time to set up a table for door prizes and other tables to use for the seed swapping part of our afternoon. Since the room wasn't being used later that day, she graciously allowed us to stay as long as we liked after lunch, giving us plenty of time to visit and swap seeds. A waitress continued to check with us, providing drinks and anything else we needed. We made sure to leave a generous tip, because we want to be welcome to do this again!
Our "gift table" at my fall swap last year was such fun that I decided I wanted to have a lot of door prizes for this party, also. A few people had let me know they were bringing things, and I put together an assortment of other goodies, making sure everybody would go home with something. Well, the generosity of DGers is legendary. With all the unannounced door prizes that were added to the table as people arrived, I think everybody went home with two or three items–what fun!
Although the general tone of gatherings like this is informal, it's important to have a couple of scheduled times in mind for various events to happen. Otherwise, suddenly three hours have passed in eating and conversation, it's nearly time to go, and nobody has swapped so much as a single sunflower seed. And while seed swapping may be secondary to visiting, going home with new-to-you seeds is definitely part of the fun of an event like this! Since we were gathering at noon, I decided we'd play a game for door prizes at 2 pm, and then after that we'd start swapping seeds. The game (nothing too lengthy; we played a version of Bingo) was a good transition between meal time and seed swapping time.
The seed swapping will go more smoothly and be more fun for everybody with a little advance preparation. Posting a seed swap thread before the gathering gives people a place to discuss what seeds they have to share and what they're looking for. Seeds can be earmarked to fill requests, and people's interests can be gauged. It's good to know ahead of time whether to try to bag up lots of birdhouse gourd seeds to share around or to concentrate on bringing flower seeds instead.
New gardeners at your swap event may not have many seeds to share. I decided to use some extra seeds in my stash to get things off to a good start with our swap. I made up little gift bags for each person, putting several packets of seed into each bag. Anything they didn't want could be traded on the spot. The bags also turned out to be useful for others to drop in seeds earmarked for particular people before the swap got underway. I also put a couple of "free to good home" baskets on each swap table. All afternoon, people added extra seed packets to these baskets and took what they could use. Leftovers went out in "seed for SASBE" offers after the party.
As much as possible, encourage participants to package their seeds ahead of time in little labeled packets, just as they would for trades by mail. Having both the name of the plant and the DG name of the trader on the packet will help a lot if somebody has any questions later. Some seeds always seem to get split up on the spot, so it's also a great idea to provide some extra little seed packets as well as labels and pencils.
Organizing a DG gathering at my home was fairly easy, because I kept things simple and had a lot of help from the folks who came. Organizing a DG gathering at a local restaurant was even easier, and best of all somebody else handled the cleanup. The hardest thing I had to do at the end was to say goodbye.
Thanks to docgipe for the photos used in the images of me arranging the gift table and of the buffet serving line. Other photos in the article are by the author. We're doing it again! If you'll be in the Frederick area February 21, check out the "Think Spring!" swap planning thread in the MidAtlantic forum.
About Jill M. Nicolaus
Better known as "Critter" on DG, Jill gardens in Frederick, MD. My irises are bloomed out, but the daylilies are just getting started! Our front porch robins are busy fetching worms for their second crop of babies. I love summer!
(Images in my articles are from my photos, unless otherwise credited.)
Posted by GardenerdMom (from Box Springs, GA) on January 14, 2009 at 01:42 AM:
Thanks for your seed swap party idea. Wish I had of read about yesterday to suggest at our annual Volunteer meeting today for our local botanical garden. We will have maybe 2 plant sales this year and will use many ideas shared and a Seed Swap would be greatly appreciated. May your 2009 be "More" than just fine!
...
Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on January 14, 2009 at 09:24 AM:
Oh, I hope you do get a Seed Swap organized! If you do one that's open to the public (not just to your volunteers), you might want to consider some sort of "chit" system where incoming seeds are given 1, 2, or 3 chits (use any sort of marker, like bottle caps, etc) according to their condition and type (a newer pack with harder-to-find hybrid seeds might get 3 chits, while an older pack of Straight 8 cukes would only get 1. Then people use the "coin" from their donated seeds to shop the swap. Would that work? You'll have to let us know! :-)
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Subject: Clever Idea!
Posted by SingingWolf (from Menifee, CA) on January 09, 2009 at 12:50 AM:
Critter,
You always seem to have the best ideas! Thanks for a charming idea. Like the idea of a seed swap party much better than a tea party. Good tips on how to keep everything flowing smoothly while still getting the task accomplished within a given time frame. Great article!
WIB!
SW
...
Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on January 09, 2009 at 11:31 AM:
Thanks! Actually, last year's swap started as a tea party (with seed swapping), LOL... but I got sick and decided I wasn't quite up to hosting at my place after all, so we turned it into a "Chinese tea party" at the restaurant! That worked out well. :-)
...
Posted by SingingWolf (from Menifee, CA) on January 09, 2009 at 03:27 PM:
Critter:
The only tea parties I get invited to are fundraisers, with boring and pretentious people. I am more down to earth and don't have much patience with pretentious people. I'd rather just give a donation to a worthy cause than waste time with people who only care about how much I can add to their coffers. Especially when I could be out in the garden. : )
I'm sure any tea party thrown by you would be lively, full of interesting conversation, and full of lots of fun and laughter! : )
Talk about turning lemons into lemonade! : ) Well done Critter!
WIB,
SW
...
Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on January 09, 2009 at 03:48 PM:
If you ever manage to get out this way, I'll throw a tea party in your honor -- and it'll be a fun one! :-)
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Posted by SingingWolf (from Menifee, CA) on January 09, 2009 at 04:22 PM:
I'm sure it would. I know us critter people are simpatico! : )
How far away is Rhode Island from you? You never know. I might be headed out that way some day to do more research on a book.
Same goes for you, if you ever make it out my way, we probably won't have a tea party, but we'll do something special! : )
WIB,
SW
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Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on January 09, 2009 at 06:49 PM:
LOL... it doesn't have to be a tea party, we just need to get together if we're in the same area!
I think Rhode Island is pretty far from us, maybe 500 miles?
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Posted by SingingWolf (from Menifee, CA) on January 09, 2009 at 11:22 PM:
Rats!
WIB,
SW
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Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on January 09, 2009 at 11:54 PM:
I just checked mapquest, to be sure... 417 miles from Frederick to Providence. Rats!
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Subject: Nice
Posted by phicks (from Lakeland, FL) on January 08, 2009 at 04:01 PM:
Good Article and Pictures Jill Did you make all that food in the Top Picture? Paul
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Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on January 08, 2009 at 06:03 PM:
Hahaha Paul, no I did not. I have been known to "put out a spread," but boy is it ever easy to just let the restaurant do it for me. :-)
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Subject: Gardening flowers, bulbs & seed catalogs
Posted by Plantedz (from Marlborough, MA) on January 08, 2009 at 10:04 AM:
Happy Thursday - January 8, 2009!
I've been receiving a lot of plant catalogs and yes, the pictures are all so beautiful and there are many plants listed that are just different from any other plants I've seen in my neighborhood (making them more desireable). Do you have any success stories with any particular catalogs?
PlantedZ
Zone 6
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Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on January 08, 2009 at 10:13 AM:
Happy Thursday to you, too!
I'd suggest checking out the companies whose catalogs interest you in DG's Garden Watchdog. Reputations can change over time if companies are bought or sold or just encounter problems, so I check there even if I've ordered from them before. The fact that comments are posted along with ratings will give you a good idea of which companies are the better ones... and there's a "top 30" list, too!
Enjoy planning your spring planting!
...
Posted by Plantedz (from Marlborough, MA) on January 08, 2009 at 10:25 AM:
Thanks for the reply. I'm pretty new to Dave's website and not use to all the "tricks of the trade" yet.
I'm so looking forward to the planting season! Our winter has been brutal!
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Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on January 08, 2009 at 01:16 PM:
Welcome to DG! Keep exploring... you'll be amazed at the wealth of info and resources here.
Think Spring!
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on January 08, 2009 at 09:53 PM:
Hi planted! I'm not too too far away from you - welcome!
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Subject: oh boy
Posted by onewish1 (from Denville, NJ) on January 08, 2009 at 06:53 AM:
looks like a great day with lots of goodies.... wish I lived closer
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Posted by Jan23 (from Salem Cnty, NJ) on January 08, 2009 at 08:52 AM:
Great idea, Jill. Have a super swap.
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Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on January 08, 2009 at 10:11 AM:
Thanks!
The "feel" of DG makes me feel as though all of you ought to live just around the corner from me! Real distances often turn out to be much longer than virtual ones. But if you're ever in the area, let me know, even if there's no swap party in the works!
Meanwhile, if you thought that event sounded fun, get something like it going in your area. Your regional forum is probably a good place to start... :-)
The previous "
But there's an even easier way to get a group of DGers together for an afternoon. Let a local restaurant handle most of the logistics for you!
The manager at Chef Lin was very helpful, letting me come in ahead of time to set up a table for door prizes and other tables to use for the seed swapping part of our afternoon. Since the room wasn't being used later that day, she graciously allowed us to stay as long as we liked after lunch, giving us plenty of time to visit and swap seeds. A waitress continued to check with us, providing drinks and anything else we needed. We made sure to leave a generous tip, because we want to be welcome to do this again!
Otherwise, suddenly three hours have passed in eating and conversation, it's nearly time to go, and nobody has swapped so much as a single sunflower seed. And while seed swapping may be secondary to visiting, going home with new-to-you seeds is definitely part of the fun of an event like this! Since we were gathering at noon, I decided we'd play a game for door prizes at 2 pm, and then after that we'd start swapping seeds. The game (nothing too lengthy; we played a version of Bingo) was a good transition between meal time and seed swapping time.
New gardeners at your swap event may not have many seeds to share. I decided to use some extra seeds in my stash to get things off to a good start with our swap. I made up little gift bags for each person, putting several packets of seed into each bag. Anything they didn't want could be traded on the spot. The bags also turned out to be useful for others to drop in seeds earmarked for particular people before the swap got underway. I also put a couple of "free to good home" baskets on each swap table. All afternoon, people added extra seed packets to these baskets and took what they could use. Leftovers went out in "seed for SASBE" offers after the party.
