Mon 3/20
One of the big stories of modern agriculture is the loss of seed and plant diversity as monocropping has dominated farming and varieties suited for long-distance shipping and storage have caused varieties less well-suited for modern food distribution to disappear.
Organizations such as the Cleveland Seed Bank are trying in a small way to reverse this trend, as well as fight food insecurity, by encouraging more people to plant community gardens and urban farms. And one way they do this is by getting seeds into the hands of growers. At the beginning of every year they host their seed swap, where experienced seed savers bring seeds they’ve collected from their own gardens after the previous season. But they also provide donated seeds for free to those who don’t bring seeds to swap.
Another program they sponsor launches for the season this week: Seed Libraries hosted by seven public library systems in northeast Ohio, including Cuyahoga, Lorain and Lake counties. Each offers a collection of organic, non-GMO, open-pollinated vegetable, herb and flower seeds; all come with planting information. No, you don’t have to bring them back, they don’t have a due date. You just have to take them and plant them. But if you’d like to save seed and share next year, you can!
Among the seeds available are basil, three varieties of tomatoes, two varieties of squash, zucchini, cucumber, eggplant, bush beans, snap peas, hot and sweet pepper varieties, pumpkin, collards, kale, lettuce, spinach and milkweed, which supports pollinators such as the Monarch butterfly.
The seed banks open on the first day of spring — Monday March 20. For a full list of library systems and branches that will have seeds (as well as the precise varieties of each vegetable available), go here. Learn more about the Cleveland Seed Bank and the work it does to protect agricultural diversity here.