WHY A SEED LIBRARY?

 

 

Heirloom Seeds: Family Treasures Worth Passing Down

 

 

It's been almost five years since we first opened our doors AND our "drawers" currently at the Downers Grove Public Library.

 

Of course I'm talking about the drawers of the old-fashioned card catalog upstairs in the library in which we are storing hundreds of open pollinated heirloom seeds. What is different about these varieties of seeds?  Most importantly, they are quickly vanishing forever!!  There was a time around 1900 when the diversity of these seeds, mostly brought to America by millions of immigrants, was in its glory. Garden catalogs were bursting with many dozens of distinctly different kinds of vegetables such as cabbage, corn, cucumber or carrot! Gardeners had an almost endless choice of food crops to try. 

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However, since that time, different cultural, mechanical, meteorological and societal changes have come to bear on our seed choices and 95% of these glorious seeds have gone extinct. These open pollinated beauties are what a seed was intended to be: the most powerful living thing on Earth!!! These heirloom seeds can make an exact copy of themselves every time they reproduce, which represents our future breeding capabilities if we need to adapt to hotter and drier conditions.

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Please join us as we grow out these seeds each year to increase the quantities and secure them for our future. We will teach you how.

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The concept is simple: Learn from us how to save seeds, then borrow some,

 

grow them out, save seeds from a few plants and then return the number of

 

seeds you borrowed!  American families used to save their seeds and

 

occasionally swap seeds with their community.  Let's rediscover their lost

 

tradition together.  

 

 

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Yours,

 

Vicki Nowicki

 

Founder