Staff
Calling all veggie gardeners, large and small! The Meaford Seed Library would welcome donations of any orphan seeds from your private stash.
The Meaford Seed Library was launched during Earth Week 2014. In keeping with the sharing culture of libraries, a variety of seeds are available to patrons at no cost. The long term hope is that gardeners will regularly supplement the seed library with seeds from their own gardens; untreated, non-gmo and heritage varieties.
Seed libraries have a simple elegance that encourages everyone to try growing anything. Seed banks are highly sophisticated operations designed to conserve and protect our seed heritage for humanity in the event of disaster.
There are so many reasons to embrace a seed library. The obvious one of course is sharing the pure pleasure of growing something edible in your own garden.
With the maturing of the local food movement, many of us are aware of where our food is grown. The next step in this evolution is to know where our seeds originate. A vital part of building local food security is the availability of seeds that are untreated, non-GMO and regionally adapted.
Right in our own backyard in both Grey and Wellington counties, four exceptional farms and farmers are acting collaboratively on this need. Seeds of Diversity magazine (summer 2014 issue), featured the Seed Hub project of Saugeen River CSA, Green Being Farm, Cedar Down Farm & Reroot Organic Farm. The four farms have “set up a collaborative seed production project that promises to strengthen the regional seed system.” The project will produce “farm scale quantities of regionally adapted, ecologically grown vegetable seed.”
Aabir Dey, author of the Seeds of Transition article sums it up: “We know that seeds grow more than just food – they enrich our heritage, strengthen our diversity and they always give back. But among all the amazing gifts seeds give us, perhaps it is the capacity to bring us together that is the most unique.”
Your donations to the Meaford Seed Library will add to the strength of these amazing gifts. Drop by the Meaford Public Library today to see our own Seed Library and add to its bounty.
