How does a Community Seed Library Work?

During planting season, members take out seeds from the library and grow them. They save seeds from the plants they grow and hopefully at the end of the season, return more to the library than they initially took, thereby helping to build the collection.

Borrowing Seed

Once you are a member, you are welcome to take up to five packages of seed at a time. If you successfully grow the plants and harvest seed from them, we ask that you return some of the cleaned, dried seed to our collection. If you have never saved seed before, Seeds of Diversity has simple instructions for saving tomatoes, peas, beans, and lettuce. We encourage beginners to try saving seed from these easy vegetables first.

Donating Seed

Anyone can donate seed to our collection. Perhaps you have some seeds that have been saved in your family for generations and want to ensure they don’t die out. We’d love to help! We accept any open-pollinated varieties, but try to focus on vegetables that are easy to grow and save. We do not collect genetically modified seed or seed from hybrid plants.

Seed Cleaning Equipment

Thanks to the generous support of Urban Systems, we are the proud owners of some fascinating and functional seed-cleaning equipment. Our winnower and thresher allow us to clean large amounts of seed in a short period of time (and have fun doing it!)

Growers with a large amount of seed to clean can have us do it for them. We conduct demonstrations of our winnower and thresher at Seedy Saturday, the Farmer’s Market, and at local schools, and often need seed to put through the equipment. We’ll be happy to clean your seed for you in return for a donation to our seed library.

As well, we lend our equipment out to growers who have completed an orientation on how to use the winnower and thresher.

Contact Caitlin Quist at caitlin@kamloopsfoodpolicycouncil.com to make arrangements or get more information.