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Santa Fe Seed Library

A Project of the Santa Fe Extension Master Gardeners

The Seed Library is located at Santa Fe Public Library’s Southside Branch at 6599 Jaguar Drive. The Seed Library is open starting March 26, 2022, from 10 am to 6 pm Tuesday-Saturday.

Launched in March 2019, the SFPL Seed Library at the Southside Library is a resource for patrons to check out a variety of seeds to grow in their own yards. We encourage patrons to save seeds from open-pollinated varieties to replant themselves, to share with friends, and to donate to the Seed Library in order to replenish and increase the locally-grown seed stock. For Seed Library patrons new to gardening and especially to growing and saving seeds, the Santa Fe Extension Master Gardeners have arranged to provide educational support and free workshops on a number or related topics.

Seed Library Support and Workshops

Seed Library Info Table

In partnership with the Santa Fe Public Library, Seed Stewards will staff the SFPL Seed Library, Southside Branch during peak planting and harvesting times. At other times the Seed Library will be “self-service” with ample materials to explain the procedure for checking out seeds. Staffing is suspended during the pandemic.

Seed Library Workshops and Educational Materials

The Seed Stewards will put on educational events for the public at the SFPL Seed Library, at other locations, (on zoom for the duration of the pandemic). Topics include how to start and transplant seeds; soil building and raised beds; how to select, collect, and save seeds; seed exchanges; seed storing; drip irrigation techniques, botany and breeding. Workshop schedules will be posted on both the SFPL and SFEMG websites. A growing list of resource materials is listed below.

Seed School Weekend

Seed School Weekend is a public event that includes the screening of Seed: The Untold Story; Seed School in a Day; and a field trip to collect and clean native seeds.

About the Santa Fe Seed Stewards Project

The Santa Fe Seed Stewards Project is a public education program of the Santa Fe Master Gardener Association. Its mission is to promote the awareness and importance of our seeds as the most elemental source of everything we depend on – food, clothing, and shelter. Many gardeners, farmers, and the public have lost touch with where our food and other resources come from. We have outsourced seed production to biotech and agribusiness. We have forgotten that the seeds we save and share are an expression of our culture, our values, and our shared history. Seeds that survive and thrive preserve and contribute to biodiversity that ensures resilience to the vicissitudes of climate, drought, and natural and un-natural disasters. We have an opportunity to regain an awareness and appreciation for the simple and complex miracle of our seeds; to select and collect them; to save and share them; to reclaim and reestablish locally adaptive traits. To become seed stewards* right in our own back yards. The Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance has been a leader in the seed stewardship movement. Please consider taking their Seed Steward Pledge.

 

Project Goals

The Santa Fe Seed Stewards will provide educational programs relating to the importance of seeds and how seeds work, and how to grow from and harvest seeds of all kinds. The goal is to encourage the community to rediscover their connection to seeds, to where our food comes from, to the joy of watching a seed germinate and grow into a living, giving thriving plant and to save seeds from that plant to grow again and to share with others.

 

What Are Locally-Adapted Seeds and Why are they Important?

Open-pollinated seeds, versus hybridized or genetically-modified seeds, that have evolved over numerous growing seasons or perhaps even thousands of years are inherently more bio-diverse, giving them the ability to thrive in a specific regional climate, geography, and hydrology. Furthermore, this biodiversity is like a built-in insurance policy that enables adaptability to climatic change, and will be hardy and resistant to environmental stresses that would fell plants from seed imported from other regions or countries.

Resources:

Seed Libraries

Seed Growing and Collecting How-Tos

CLICK HERE to download a basic how-to tip sheet for beginning gardeners

CLICK HERE for a Seed Selection and Growing Guide from NMSU Publications

Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance Seed Saving - Book List 

BOOKS  

  • Basic Seed Saving. Death by Tomatoes. Save Your Selfers. Booklets by Bill McDorman, Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance, $5; rockymountainseeds.org

  • Starting & Saving Seeds—Thompson-Adolf

  • Seed Sowing and Saving—Turner

  • Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Growers. Suzanne Ashworth, Seed Saver's Exchange. Revised edition, 2002.

  • The New Seed Starter's Handbook. Nancy Bubel, Rodale Press, 1998.

  • The Seed Saver's Handbook by Cherfas, Fanton and Fanton, Grower Books, 1996.

ONLINE

 

Donors and Partners

The Santa Fe Seed Library is a project of the Santa Fe Extension Master Gardeners’ Seed Stewards in partnership with the Santa Fe Public Library. We are grateful to Ace Hardware Santa Fe, Agua Fria Nursery, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Botanical Interest, El Guique Farm, Farm Direct Organic, High Desert Seed + Gardens, High Ground Gardens, High Mowing Organic Seeds, La Villita Ranch, Lake Valley Seeds, Plants of the Southwest, Reunity Resources, Santa Fe Botanical Garden, Seed Savers Exchange, Snake River Seed Cooperative, Western Family Farm, Zulu Petals, and the many local gardeners who have donated their seeds.