Up until Thursday we were doing our best to keep the crop failure list up to date. Unfortunately, I have to say that at this point the list is substantially larger than what is shown here but I don’t have the time to get it posted (have to sleep to return to the sale tomorrow!). Find the incomplete list here.

Experienced plant sale shoppers know it’s wise to bring your own cart or wagon. From children’s wagons to garden carts to strollers to homemade (but sturdy!) contraptions, you never know what you’ll see being used to collect plants at the Friends School Plant Sale.

We do provide hundreds of shopping carts, but there are many, many more shoppers than available shopping carts. We rent as many shopping carts as we can find in the Twin Cities.

Some guidelines for bringing carts and wagons:

NO SLEDS on the ground. Because they are so low on the ground, they are a tripping hazard. (However, here’s a guy who’s mounted several sleds into a multilevel cart and that’s fine!)

No wagons chained together like a train. They’re too awkward to move safely when there are a lot of people around.

Some great examples we’ve seen: metal or plastic shelving units with wheels, a dog kennel on wheels, and modified two-wheeled dollies with shelves or bins added.

Plastic bins stacked on a rolling base with an upright handle or overall frame make a really great way to carry a lot of plants.

Make sure your name is on your cart , especially if it’s kind of common looking, such as a Radio Flyer wagon. About once per sale someone walks off with the another person’s wagon, which is a huge pain for everyone!

In general, it’s also great if you bring your own cardboard flats from past years or plastic bins you already own. This cuts down on waste and saves our volunteers some of the work of gathering up cardboard flats from grocery stories, so we appreciate everyone who brings their own!

And probably the best reason to bring your own wagon:

That way you can roll your plants right to your car and be on your way. If you use one of our shopping carts, you have to leave your plants at the curb, go get your car, and come back to pick them up!

We’ll be posting at least one update or article a day in the next weeks leading up to the Plant Sale. You might also want to join our Facebook group, where other shoppers are asking questions, sharing thoughts and posting photos of their plants.

And then there’s Twitter, for those of you who are interested in that. You don’t even need to have a Twitter account. Just go to Twitter.com and in the search field, enter #plantsale. Everyone who says anything about the Plant Sale is encouraged to use that “tag” in their messages, and so you can find them all.

As the week approaches, that’s the first place we’ll post crop failures and other news.

There are still some spots left for volunteers at the sale. We especially need:

• Handymen and women to help take the sale down on Sunday night (May 9), and do general clean up on Monday (May 10).
• Section advisers. This is a great job for people who know a fair amount about plants — you just hang out in a section and answer questions and help people find things. You can pick a section you’re most familiar with — shrubs, perennials, annuals, vegetables — there are advisers in all the sections. There are openings in many of the sections on many of the times during the sale, May 7 and 8!

Volunteers are invited to shop early — Thursday night, May 6, from 7:00 - 10:00 p.m.

To volunteer, go to volunteer.friendsschoolplantsale.com

As of February 1, our online sign-up system is live and ready for volunteers to sign up. To give it a try, go to volunteer.friendsschoolplantsale.com. You’ll be asked for your name, email, phone and address, and then you’ll be able to pick a shift, after reading the brief job description to make sure it’s what you were expecting.

If you’ve volunteered before, just give it your name and phone number, and assuming it matches the way you typed it in the past, the system will know who you are. Be sure to update your address if needed!

Volunteers are welcome to shop early, at our Thursday evening pre-sale (May 6 from 7:00 - 10:00 p.m.).

New this year: If you volunteer before the pre-sale, you’ll be getting your postcard for pre-sale admission after you’ve volunteered. Only volunteers who work after the pre-sale will receive their postcards by mail.

We would love your feedback on the system. Please send it (or any questions about volunteering) to signup@friendsschoolplantsale.com

Do you have tips for your fellow shoppers (especially first or second-time shoppers) about how you do the sale? Let us know, and we will post it to the website.

Do you have a great cart you bring to the sale with special compartments or a built-in stool so you can take a break? Maybe with a jet engine attached to help you get back to your car? Send us a picture!

Send your tips to: info@friendsschoolplantsale.com.

Send your photos to: photos@friendsschoolplantsale.com.

Did you know we’ve long had gift certificates for the Friends School Plant Sale? But we didn’t have an easy way to sell them… you had to send a check to the school.

Now you can buy certificates through the school’s secure website in the following amounts: $25, $40, $50, $75 and $100.

The school office will receive your request and send a certificate to your address or directly to the address of anyone you want to honor with a gift.

The wristbands will start to be handed out starting at 8 a.m. on Friday morning.

Sunday wristbands will be handed out starting at 10 a.m.

We always put a little note by the map of the sale published in the catalog that says “Plant locations are subject to change.” This is one of those times.

Due to the increase in the number of vegetables at this year’s sale, we’ve run out of space indoors for the Grass section, so it will be located in the fenced-in area along the front of the Grandstand, at the very eastern end of the fence (right outside the eastern door to the fenced in area).

It will be right across the way from the the Native Wild Flowers.

Hey, if you’ve been wondering where the shopping list form is — Here it is! (pdf, 12K) (It’s also linked at the top of the Doing the Sale page.)