Seed library stocked up for 2019, expanding

Manchester Seed Library, fully stocked up for 2019 growing season.

The Manchester Seed library has been stocked up for the 2019 growing season. Do you need seeds? Come check out the seed library. 

In April 2014, the Manchester Community Garden Committee teamed up with the Manchester District Library to start the Manchester Seed Library. Located next to the front desk at the Manchester District Library, 912 City Road, the seed library is accessible whenever the library is open and does not require a library card to use. 

Anyone who gardens is invited to take whatever seeds they will use for free and plant them. Seeds of all types are available including for vegetables, herbs and flowers. Those who use the seed library are asked to return whatever seeds they don’t use, and if they are able, to save some seeds from their crop to donate back to the seed library for next year. 

If you are not an experienced seed saver, you can take a moment to look up the seeds you are taking home in the guide to seed saving, Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth, at the seed library for specific instructions to saving each type of seeds. Some seed types, like beans and tomatoes, are very easy to save. Other seeds, like corn, are more difficult because you must be aware of the risk of wind-carried cross pollination from nearby corn fields, and with others, like squash, the risk of insect-carried cross pollination from other varieties of the plant. 

Only heirloom or open-pollinated seed varieties should be saved, as the seeds saved from F-1 hybrids will not produce the same varieties. The Seed Library mostly stocks open pollinated varieties; but if in doubt, look up the variety in a seed catalog or on the internet to determine if it is open pollinated or an F-1 hybrid. When donating saved seeds, please write the plant, variety (if known), year collected, and any other information that would be useful on the envelope or bag of seeds and bring them to the front desk of the library.

If you have unopened or half-used packets of seeds you’ve purchased and aren’t going to grow, you can donate these to the seed library as long as they are no more than 5 years old. Just bring them to the front desk of the library. If a seed packet does not have a date on it, please write the year you purchased it on the packet. 

Every spring the Community Garden Committee, using a grant from 5 Healthy Towns and partnering with the Garden Mill in Chelsea, stocks up the seed library with vegetable and herb seeds. This large stocking up happened last week! Now is a great time to visit the seed library.

Currently the seed library only stocks seeds but the seed library is expanding and is looking at providing seed potatoes and onion sets, as well as gardening tools that will require a library card to check out.

Do you wish you could grow a garden but don’t have the space? The Manchester Community Garden located behind Klager Elementary School near the athletic fields still has plots available to rent for 2019 and applications can be picked up at the Seed Library. 

Questions? Email sara@frogfuz.com, or stop in at the Manchester District Library and ask a staff member. 

Manchester District Library staff member Tamara Denby stands next to the recently stocked up seed library.

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by Sara Swanson

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