Seed Library Stocked Up, Community Garden Applications Available

The Manchester Seed Library located at the Manchester District Library is a collaboration between the MDL and the Manchester Community Garden.

It is starting to feel like gardening weather and just about time to start some peppers and tomatoes indoors. If you haven’t purchased your seeds for this growing season yet, you are in luck; the Manchester Seed Library, located at the Manchester District Library, is all stocked up with more than 400 brand new, unopened packets of vegetable, flower and herb seeds.

This stocking-up was thanks to large donations of seed packs from the 5 Healthy Towns through the Manchester Wellness Coalition, the Garden Mill in Chelsea, and the Felczak family, and is in addition to the many additions residents make all year long of their own unused and saved seeds. All seeds are free to take and plant. You are just asked to re-donate any seeds you don’t use, other unopened or opened seed packets you aren’t going to plant, or extra seeds you’ve saved yourself. You do not need a library card to use the seed library.

Manchester Area residents who have too small or shady of a yard to grow a garden but want to garden, can rent a plot in the Manchester Community Garden located behind Klager Elementary on the bus drive across from the baseball diamond. Raised beds and plots range in cost from $10 to $40 for the summer. Applications are available next to the seed library at the Manchester District library or can be downloaded here: 2016 MCG application. The plot rental fee can be waived in case of financial hardship by filling out a form at the Community Resource Center.

Because the winter and the high winds we’ve had this spring have been very hard on the garden, the Community Garden Committee will be holding a work day on Sunday, April 24th at 2 pm. Everyone is invited to meet at the garden to help get it in shape for the 2016 growing season. Bring work gloves if you have them.

The seed library has just about every kind of seed you could ask for – from cherry tomatoes to scorzonera, from poppies to obscure mallows grown by Thomas Jefferson, from lemon basil to cat grass.

For as little as $1 a month, you can keep Manchester-focused news coverage alive.

by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and founder of the Manchester Mirror.