2008 Catalog and Seed Sale

Come get your copy of our first ever print catalog!

Here at the Gardiner Library it feels like spring has sprung! Seeds, some in colorful packs, others in small jars and containers, have taken over the main table and are overflowing to adjacent bookshelves. The full-color Seed Saver’s Exchange packs really brighten up the stacks and the bulk seeds and seed for borrowing are reminiscent of an old-fashioned apothecary shop.

To see the full list of available seeds go to our new revamped website www.seedlibrary.org. Click through the pages of the site to see the exciting developments in store for 2009 including online ordering, online seed swap, and our vintage seed ephemera collection.

Don’t forget- in addition to free seeds, members get discounts on pre-packed seeds, seed saving workshops, and can receive free heirloom gardening advice. Membership is only $10 per year and we have enough free seeds to go around. Memberships support our not-for-profit seed saving work.

Our goal for 2008 is to sell out of everything from other seed companies so we can start fresh with our own locally grown seeds. February 4^th-8^th is our early-bird special for library patrons and anyone on our email list, like you! On February 9^th we will be at the Winter Sun Farm Market in New Paltz where hundreds of local folks have been flocking to buy local winter produce. For info and directions to the market visit www.wintersunfarms.com.

Seeds for Sale

Are you drooling over those full-color glossy seed catalogs from across the country? Can you almost taste the fresh ripe tomatoes as you get ready to place your order? My hope for 2008 is that people’s new-found passion for eating locally grown produce will expand into their own gardens. Growing vegetables and flowers with local seed helps preserve valuable plant diversity as well as the fascinating stories that come with these seeds. I’m excited to be working with local artists who are designing the first original Seed Library seed packs. We are creating beautiful seed packages that reflect the uniqueness and diversity of our seeds.

Seeds and Seed Library memberships are available at the Gardiner Library starting February 4^th. Seed can also be purchased at the February and March Winter Sun Farm Markets at Deyo Hall in New Paltz. There is currently no printed catalog, but a list of varieties available for 2008 can be received by emailing Hudson Valley Seed Library at info@seedlibrary.org.

Upcoming seed saving events include a two-day seed saving workshop as part of the Permaculture in Action series at SUNY Ulster in February. Seed Saving and Permaculture go hand in hand- this workshop wil show why and how to integrate seed saving into permaculture landscapes. In May, I’ll be giving a talk called The Full Circle Garden: Seed Saving for Backyard Gardeners, at the Catskill Native Nursery’s Wildflower Festival. The talk will cover easy planning for seed saving, best heirloom plant choices for beginners, seed saving tips, and simple seed storage ideas. The Seed Library will also have a table at the festival with seeds, membership information, and books and vintage seed ephemera to browse and buy.

Check back to the blog to keep up to date with Seed Library events.

Why Save Seeds?

These are the words of seed activist and FEDCO co-founder CR Lawn. They are worth reprinting, rereading, and remembering. FEDCO is one of a handful of responsible, conscious, and conscientious seed companies in the U.S. For the seeds we are not saving ourselves, this is a seed company worth buying from. There are others, such as Seed Saver's Exchange, and they will be recognized in their own posts. The FEDCO website has an archive of writings and talks given by CR Lawn on a range of seed related topics. Click on the heading "Why Save Seeds?" to take a look.

Why Save Seeds? by CR Lawn

1. To renew your age-old partnership with plants. Seeds are the life force. Plants, as living beings, desire to reproduce. By allowing them to go to seed and complete their growth cycle, you cooperate in a process essential to all life forms on Earth.

2. To retain control of your food supply. Some things are too important to allow other people to do for you. Food is a basic necessity and the cornerstone of our culture. Control of the seed is key to control of our food supply. By saving seeds you retain that lifeline. Over the past two generations, the seed industry has done almost no work to maintain, improve or develop open-pollinated varieties that will come true from seed. What little has been done has been accomplished by dedicated amateur seed savers and breeders. We need more such people. Instead, the industry has emphasized hybrid varieties whose breeding lines are trade secrets and whose seed will not come true to type. Lately, biotechnology research has almost completely replaced classical plant breeding at our universities and in the seed industry.

3. To preserve our heritage and our biodiversity. Farmers saved seeds and improved food crops for millennia. Seed companies have been on the scene for fewer than three centuries. Only in the last hundred years have farmers and gardeners become widely dependent on seed companies. Today the seed industry is so concentrated that just five large multinational corporations control 75% of the world’s vegetable seed market. They add and drop varieties according to their own financial interests. Many of our present varieties have only one commercial source. If they are dropped, they will disappear and you won’t be able to get them—unless you save seed.

4. To preserve the varietal characteristics you want. Most varieties being developed by the industry are for large-scale food processors and marketers. For the most part, they are bred for uniform ripening, long distance shippability, and perfect appearance at the expense of taste and staggered ripening. If you want the best-tasting varieties, save your own seed from the ones you like.

5. To develop and preserve strains adapted to your own growing conditions. The large corporations who control the seed trade bought out scores of small and regional seed companies and dropped many of the regional specialties. They are interested only in varieties with widespread adaptability. If you want varieties and strains most adaptable to your specific climate conditions, you can get them only by saving your own seed. Over several generations, seeds can develop very specific adaptabilities to the conditions at your site.

6. To help preserve our right to save seeds. The industry continues to place more and more restrictions on farmers’ and gardeners’ right to save seeds. Variety patenting, licensing agreements, and restricted lists such as that maintained by the European Union, are industry tools to wrest control of the seed from the commons and keep it for themselves. Terminator Technology, now in its developmental phase, would render seeds sterile, making it impossible for farmers to save seed and forcing users back to the seed companies for every new crop.

7. To increase our available options. Contrary to industry claims, patenting has not encouraged creative plant breeding. Instead it has reduced cooperation among plant breeders and restricted availability of germplasm and plant varieties. For example, Blizzard snow pea has been off the market for over a decade because the patent holder dropped it but will not grant permission to any other company to propagate it for sale.