501-918-3025
calsfoundation@cals.org
calsfoundation@cals.org
Grow Your Garden with the CALS Seed Library
We’ve opened a new Seed Library at the CALS McMath branch library!
Now you can spend autumn dreaming up garden ideas as you look through our seed collection. You’ll be ready to start germinating those indoor seeds in January and February. The seed library features a cabinet supplied with envelopes full of seeds including:
Vegetables | Fruits | Herbs | Flowers
In addition, there’s a colorful binder showing pictures of the final full-grown plants, foods, or flowers, so you will have a visual reference for the kind of seed you are choosing.
The Seed Library works on an exchange system to encourage the gardening community.
Take some seeds, give some seeds
Seed Library members may take up to five different kinds of seeds at a time. After their plants grow, members harvest new seeds and bring some back to keep the library’s supply replenished. If members would rather not harvest their own seeds, they are free to contribute purchased seed packets as well. One important guideline: all seeds contributed should be heirloom or non-GMO seeds.
To become a member, all you have to do is fill out a simple form that allows you to keep a seed record. The library will supply bags to return your seed contributions, if that is helpful for you. And if anyone finds that a seed contribution is not possible, a member may also volunteer for the Seed Library to help with tasks such as planning classes, germinating seeds, seed sorting, or offering gardening tips.
Vanessa Scroggins, staff member and manager of the Seed Library, is an enthusiastic gardener herself. She lists three great reasons to garden and join the Seed Library.
- Feed yourself, your loved ones, and others in your community with your own healthy garden produce.
- Help improve the diversity of our local seed stock.
- Locally grown seeds are more resilient and more likely to thrive in our local area.
Now is the perfect time to plan that spring plot or a container garden! Come down and check it out at the CALS McMath Library at 2100 John Barrow Road just south of I-630. If you have any questions about the Seed Library, call (501) 225-0066.
The initial stock of the Seed Library was supplied by a generous donation from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and Ann Green with Healing Waters. The Seed Library joins our other innovative lending collections including tools, toys, telescopes, birdwatching kits, and musical instruments. For more information on these collections, call 501-918-3000.
