Create Your Own Seed Lending Library
Our intention at Richmond Grows is to be a model for sustainability in our community while supporting other communities to create their own seed lending library and seed interchanges (swaps). All of our materials are free and available for non-commercial purposes. Since we opened in May 2010 overt 800 seed lending libraries have opened!
1. More resources: Check out Seed Libraries to see a more extensive list of resources to support existing and emerging seed libraries.
2. Join UpBeet!: Connect with other seed librarians and ask questions on our seed librarians' online forum.
3. Become a sister seed library: Have a seed library or interested in starting one? Please take 2-3 minutes to fill in our survey. Our list of sister libraries is publically available at SeedLibraries.net, but does not include personal information such as contact names and emails. You will also receive our Seed Librarians' Cool Beans! Newsletter that focuses on supporting seed libraries.
How to launch a seed library
Step 1: Get Your Peeps Together
Who is going to help you?
What are some natural alliances that you can create with other community groups or businesses? Here are a few ideas:
Step 2: Locate Your Space
Get your space. We recommend a well visited community space. Pick a venue that is frequented by the general public. We chose the main branch of the local public library since it is open to the public, widely used by a broad spectrum of citizens, and the missions of Richmond Grows and the public library dovetail nicely.
Step 3: Acquire Library Materials
You'll need a sturdy cabinet for the seeds and, of course, seeds. We recommend that you get a wooden cabinet as you are probably going to have to put some dividers in the drawers to organize the seeds into rows. The height of the drawers is important as it should be high enough to accommodate a regular-sized seed packet, but not too high as to waste space. A good height for the drawer is about 6". We have three cabinets: edibles (veggies/fruit/edible flowers), herbs, and ornamentals (non-edible flowers, California natives, and ornamentals, such as gourds). Things you'll need:
Labels for drawers
When you get your drawers for your seeds you will need to clearly label them. The labels serve a dual purpose of helping members find and return seeds easily while educating them about plant families and the difficulty of different families to save seeds.
Our vegetables are labeled by plant families. We recommend that you put easy to save seeds in the upper drawers and difficult ones below. NOTE: All of our labels are for the San Francisco Bay Area. Certain families may be more difficult in your region if you have cold winters. Tomatoes, lettuce, beans, and beans are "super easy" regardless of your climate. Besides labeling the families in each drawer, and including some common family members, we also recommend that you clearly label the difficulty of the seeds to be saved. We created three categories and these are the labels:
1. Super Easy - recommend using neon green paper
2. Easy - recommend any color besides red paper; we chose aquamarine
3. Difficult- recommend using neon yellow paper
4. Hand pollinate - put on the cucurbit drawers & on the corn drawer, if you offer it (not all members of the grass family need hand-pollination; corn readily cross pollinates so we always mark any shared corn seed as "crossed?")
Labels for Outside of Drawers: The drawers for the edibles cabinet are labeled by families and we printed each family with a different color. The colors we chose correspond to the SF Bay Area Planting Guide that was created by B.A.S.I.L., our sister seed library in Berkeley, California.
Labels for inside of drawers: (Remember that our categories of Super Easy, Easy and Difficult reflect seed saving levels based on SF Bay Area climate. Some families, such as the Amaranth (Goosefoot) and Parsley families will be difficult if you have cold winters.)
1. Amaranth (Goosefoot) Family
2. Gourd Family
3. Grass Family
4. Lily Family
5. Mint Family
6. Mustard Family
7. Nightshade Family
8. Parsley Family
9. Pea Family
10. Sunflower Family
11. Miscellaneous Edibles
We also have numbers on the drawer and an alphabetized list of common edibles so people can easily find a plant. Ex. Arugula - Drawer 9 - Super easy. Here is our list along with Spanish translations. If you have a small collection, this will probably not be necessary.
Seed Markers- when people check out seeds it's helpful to have "seed markers" (kind of like book markers) available for them to stick in the drawers so they can easily return packets where they found them. We had a number of them made on card stock and used a variety of colors so if several people are using the library simultaneous, such as at an orientation, they can keep track of which spaces are theirs by using only one color of marker. Now that we are mostly in jars, these seed markers have become less important.
Step 4: Create Signage for Your Library
Signs you may want to have:
Educating people about seed saving is an essential part of the library. Otherwise, you may get a lot of things that aren't what they claim to be. Every time we do an orientation, we distribute "Super Easy Seed Saving" brochures and refer people to our website for additional resources. Around harvest time, we will also offer some basic seed saving classes.
How to Save Seeds Brochures
We now only have a "Super easy seed saving brochure." Below are the original brochures that cover some other information and are translated into other languages. We are keeping these on our website as a possible resource for you. Remember there are lots more resources at SeedLibraries.net.
For your convenience, we've highlighted words that you will need to switch out to reflect your organization and location.
NOTE: All of our labels are or the San Francisco Bay Area. Certain families may be more difficult in your region if you have cold winters. Contact local seed savers or refer to guides on seed saving for specifics on your area. Seed Savers Forum is also a great place to get expert advice.
Highlighted areas indicate information that you will need to change. This has been done for some - not all of the brochures - so please scan carefully.
How to Save Seeds Brochure- outside, English
How to Save Seeds Brochure- inside, English
How to Save Seeds Brochure - outside, Spanish
How to Save Seeds Brochure- inside, Spanish
How to Use the Library Brochures
How to Use the Library - outside, English
How to Use the Library - inside, English
How to Use the Library - outside, Spanish
How to Use the Library - inside, Spanish
How to Use the Library - inside, Mandarin
How to Use the Library - outside, Mandarin
How to Check Out Seeds
We do not have a database for people to check out seeds. We tried but at when we started there were not many computers and it was not connected to the Internet and it kept getting turned off. So we only use the paper form now. Here is our paper membership form. We have a binder with A-Z tabs and people take a blank form from the front of the binder and fill it in and file it under the first letter of their last name. We put a check next the box once we have entered it onto our Google spreadsheet. We chose to use Google spreadsheets to enter membership information so that this task could be done by various volunteers and accessible to whomever is doing our online newsletter.
We're 100% volunteer and our system is open and self-serve. We do not repackage seeds.
Here is the paper membership in Spanish.
Step 6: Launching Your Seed Library
One way to launch your seed lending library is to have a seed swap. See our page (under construction) on how to organize a seed swap.
Step 7: Orientations to the Library
When we first got started we chose to do orientations so that people would know how to use the library properly as well as understand how they can make the library self-sustaining. Our orientations were a half-hour long and start promptly and end promptly, but many people stayed beyond that time to check out seeds and register. The focus of the orientation is what is the seed lending library, how is the library is organized, and how to check out seeds. We felt that returning seeds and discussing seed saving would be too much to take in for the initial orientation. We do pass out our seed saving brochure and strongly emphasis what the "super easy", "easy" and "difficult" signs mean. We now do not do in-person orientations, but have our on-line orientation video. However, we will do orientations for groups upon request.
Some of this material may not exactly reflect what we are doing now since this was created in 2010:
Here is our orientation material. We enlarged each piece to 2x3 ft and then put them on a large flip chart easel. Here is the Spanish version of the orientation. Here's a sample of our promo flyer in Spanish.
FAQs Seed Library Start Up
Here are some answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) that our public librarians put together.
1. More resources: Check out Seed Libraries to see a more extensive list of resources to support existing and emerging seed libraries.
2. Join UpBeet!: Connect with other seed librarians and ask questions on our seed librarians' online forum.
3. Become a sister seed library: Have a seed library or interested in starting one? Please take 2-3 minutes to fill in our survey. Our list of sister libraries is publically available at SeedLibraries.net, but does not include personal information such as contact names and emails. You will also receive our Seed Librarians' Cool Beans! Newsletter that focuses on supporting seed libraries.
How to launch a seed library
Step 1: Get Your Peeps Together
Who is going to help you?
What are some natural alliances that you can create with other community groups or businesses? Here are a few ideas:
- A permaculture guild or transition town initiative
- A local garden club
- Master gardeners
- Library or community space holders
- Check to see if there are sister libraries located near you or in a similar bioregion. They may have suggestions or seed saving and library material adapted to your situation.
Step 2: Locate Your Space
Get your space. We recommend a well visited community space. Pick a venue that is frequented by the general public. We chose the main branch of the local public library since it is open to the public, widely used by a broad spectrum of citizens, and the missions of Richmond Grows and the public library dovetail nicely.
Step 3: Acquire Library Materials
You'll need a sturdy cabinet for the seeds and, of course, seeds. We recommend that you get a wooden cabinet as you are probably going to have to put some dividers in the drawers to organize the seeds into rows. The height of the drawers is important as it should be high enough to accommodate a regular-sized seed packet, but not too high as to waste space. A good height for the drawer is about 6". We have three cabinets: edibles (veggies/fruit/edible flowers), herbs, and ornamentals (non-edible flowers, California natives, and ornamentals, such as gourds). Things you'll need:
- cabinet(s) for seeds
- seeds - write to seed companies and explain your project and the community that you will be serving; be sure to include the seed saving aspect in your letter so that you don't get hybrid seeds (however, typically, seed companies will just send whatever they have, which means you'll may get hybrid seeds and will have to decide whether you offer them or not)
- labels for the outside of the drawers - download labels below
- labels for dividers (in drawers) - download labels below
- dividers for different types of seeds - we decided to put the labels for different types of seeds onto something sturdy and had 1/4 in. wooden dividers made that are 5 3/8 x 3 3/8 in. The number of dividers you need will depend on the size of your collection. We have a fairly large collection and made 50 just for the veggies/fruits. However, as our local collection has grown, we have most things in jars and these labels are mostly needed for our flowers. We put labels on the side as well as the top of the jars. This makes it easy for members to see what's in the jar and when we go to clean up the collection, it makes it easy for us to see what seed is old and needs to be pulled.
- wooden dividers for the drawer - drawers are much wider than seed packets; having dividers creating rows of seeds will keep it more organized
- 1-2 stamps for checking in and out
- 1-2 stamp pads
- donated envelops for borrowing seeds - do not get envelopes with open windows; check local printers for discards; legal sized envelopes, sealed with edged taped shut, then cut in half are a great size for people returning seeds to the library; we now have such a large volume that we buy No. 1 & No. 6 coin envelopes and stamp them.
- Tracking seeds takes a lot of time. Many seed libraries just track what is borrowed and members. Here is our paper membership form. Here is a database that the True to Seed Coeur D'Alene Seed Sharing Library in Idaho uses that may be valuable to those of you wanting to have a database. They have an iPad that is secured to a wall. People are supposed to self-check out their own seeds using these resources. The database that can be exported from Wordpress as an Excel spreadsheet.
- The way it is setup, the check out seed section only shows when you open the webpage on a tablet or phone. You can see theirs at truetoseedcda.org.
- When you open the website on your phone: you will see a select page option, and after selecting it, you will see where there is a member sign in.
- They use a Caldera form. Below is a link that shows how to get to the Caldera forms tab through the back end of a WordPress website.
https://calderaforms.com/
How to Create a Caldera Form in Wordpress - Tutorial video
- Make envelopes labels available on-line.
Labels for drawers
When you get your drawers for your seeds you will need to clearly label them. The labels serve a dual purpose of helping members find and return seeds easily while educating them about plant families and the difficulty of different families to save seeds.
Our vegetables are labeled by plant families. We recommend that you put easy to save seeds in the upper drawers and difficult ones below. NOTE: All of our labels are for the San Francisco Bay Area. Certain families may be more difficult in your region if you have cold winters. Tomatoes, lettuce, beans, and beans are "super easy" regardless of your climate. Besides labeling the families in each drawer, and including some common family members, we also recommend that you clearly label the difficulty of the seeds to be saved. We created three categories and these are the labels:
1. Super Easy - recommend using neon green paper
2. Easy - recommend any color besides red paper; we chose aquamarine
3. Difficult- recommend using neon yellow paper
4. Hand pollinate - put on the cucurbit drawers & on the corn drawer, if you offer it (not all members of the grass family need hand-pollination; corn readily cross pollinates so we always mark any shared corn seed as "crossed?")
Labels for Outside of Drawers: The drawers for the edibles cabinet are labeled by families and we printed each family with a different color. The colors we chose correspond to the SF Bay Area Planting Guide that was created by B.A.S.I.L., our sister seed library in Berkeley, California.
Labels for inside of drawers: (Remember that our categories of Super Easy, Easy and Difficult reflect seed saving levels based on SF Bay Area climate. Some families, such as the Amaranth (Goosefoot) and Parsley families will be difficult if you have cold winters.)
1. Amaranth (Goosefoot) Family
2. Gourd Family
3. Grass Family
4. Lily Family
5. Mint Family
6. Mustard Family
7. Nightshade Family
8. Parsley Family
9. Pea Family
10. Sunflower Family
11. Miscellaneous Edibles
We also have numbers on the drawer and an alphabetized list of common edibles so people can easily find a plant. Ex. Arugula - Drawer 9 - Super easy. Here is our list along with Spanish translations. If you have a small collection, this will probably not be necessary.
Seed Markers- when people check out seeds it's helpful to have "seed markers" (kind of like book markers) available for them to stick in the drawers so they can easily return packets where they found them. We had a number of them made on card stock and used a variety of colors so if several people are using the library simultaneous, such as at an orientation, they can keep track of which spaces are theirs by using only one color of marker. Now that we are mostly in jars, these seed markers have become less important.
Step 4: Create Signage for Your Library
Signs you may want to have:
- Seed Lending Library sign
- Signs for the computer - since our seed lending library is in the public library and some patrons come to the public library to use the computer, we chose not to have our computer Internet connected. We wanted to avoid people from browsing on it. We had a few signs "This computer is for Seed Lending Library members.", "This computer is NOT connected to the Internet." and a third sign reminding people how to log-on and asking them to email us from another computer if they experience any difficulties with the program. However, we continued to have issues. We discontinued using a computer in 2013.
- How to use the library poster - We enlarged this to 2x3 feet poster.
Educating people about seed saving is an essential part of the library. Otherwise, you may get a lot of things that aren't what they claim to be. Every time we do an orientation, we distribute "Super Easy Seed Saving" brochures and refer people to our website for additional resources. Around harvest time, we will also offer some basic seed saving classes.
How to Save Seeds Brochures
We now only have a "Super easy seed saving brochure." Below are the original brochures that cover some other information and are translated into other languages. We are keeping these on our website as a possible resource for you. Remember there are lots more resources at SeedLibraries.net.
For your convenience, we've highlighted words that you will need to switch out to reflect your organization and location.
NOTE: All of our labels are or the San Francisco Bay Area. Certain families may be more difficult in your region if you have cold winters. Contact local seed savers or refer to guides on seed saving for specifics on your area. Seed Savers Forum is also a great place to get expert advice.
Highlighted areas indicate information that you will need to change. This has been done for some - not all of the brochures - so please scan carefully.
How to Save Seeds Brochure- outside, English
How to Save Seeds Brochure- inside, English
How to Save Seeds Brochure - outside, Spanish
How to Save Seeds Brochure- inside, Spanish
How to Use the Library Brochures
How to Use the Library - outside, English
How to Use the Library - inside, English
How to Use the Library - outside, Spanish
How to Use the Library - inside, Spanish
How to Use the Library - inside, Mandarin
How to Use the Library - outside, Mandarin
How to Check Out Seeds
We do not have a database for people to check out seeds. We tried but at when we started there were not many computers and it was not connected to the Internet and it kept getting turned off. So we only use the paper form now. Here is our paper membership form. We have a binder with A-Z tabs and people take a blank form from the front of the binder and fill it in and file it under the first letter of their last name. We put a check next the box once we have entered it onto our Google spreadsheet. We chose to use Google spreadsheets to enter membership information so that this task could be done by various volunteers and accessible to whomever is doing our online newsletter.
We're 100% volunteer and our system is open and self-serve. We do not repackage seeds.
Here is the paper membership in Spanish.
Step 6: Launching Your Seed Library
One way to launch your seed lending library is to have a seed swap. See our page (under construction) on how to organize a seed swap.
- Seed interchange (swap)
- Post orientation invitations on local listserves; see orientation section below
- Have a grand opening with some local officials and press
- Post on social media
Step 7: Orientations to the Library
When we first got started we chose to do orientations so that people would know how to use the library properly as well as understand how they can make the library self-sustaining. Our orientations were a half-hour long and start promptly and end promptly, but many people stayed beyond that time to check out seeds and register. The focus of the orientation is what is the seed lending library, how is the library is organized, and how to check out seeds. We felt that returning seeds and discussing seed saving would be too much to take in for the initial orientation. We do pass out our seed saving brochure and strongly emphasis what the "super easy", "easy" and "difficult" signs mean. We now do not do in-person orientations, but have our on-line orientation video. However, we will do orientations for groups upon request.
Some of this material may not exactly reflect what we are doing now since this was created in 2010:
Here is our orientation material. We enlarged each piece to 2x3 ft and then put them on a large flip chart easel. Here is the Spanish version of the orientation. Here's a sample of our promo flyer in Spanish.
FAQs Seed Library Start Up
Here are some answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) that our public librarians put together.
