Now that I'm going through my seed stash to add things to my swap list I realize I have quite a lot that I'd harvested last year, but never swapped. Much of them are the same seeds that haven't ripened yet this year. So, I think they'll be just fine to use and it should save me some work since they've already been cleaned. I just won't have as many "fresh" 2022 seeds as I usually do.
I've been tinkering around with switching up my seed packet labels that I print out from my Access database this year. I'm suddenly at the age where I need to take off my glasses to read small type and am finding the size 8 font I'm using to be a lot smaller and more annoying than it used to be!
I used to enter a bunch of info into the database about size/germination/etc. and then try to cram it all on the small labels. I would usually only do that for plants that I have long term and plan to trade on a regular basis, but it was still probably too much effort for the result.
I also used the built in garden.org "plant list" feature to keep track of things and add items to the swap that are linked to the plants database. Now I've noticed the QR codes on all the garden.org database pages and it got me thinking. I would like to make simpler packet labels with bigger font and include the plant common and scientific name, my username, year harvested and include the QR code that goes directly to the plant's page in the database. I did a little sample run and it seems to work, even sizing the QR code under an inch in size. Might be nice to just scan the seed packet with a phone and get to see all the growing info in the database, photos, etc. Also, it might be nice for adding the plant to your "have" list, creating events, etc.
I noticed that I can save the webpage of my plant list and it saves all the QR code image files, and their filenames are the same as the plant id in the database and for use in the URLS to access it. I'm going to try and do some more futzing around with it after I get the more important swapping tasks done! It might be a cool option to implement into the swap's "bought" items printout too. Probably good advertising for the site too... when those packets find their way to other people and it shows it came from a swap here and links to the plant database entry.
