Say the word “library,” and your word association is likely “books.” But across the country, including in San Diego, many libraries also lend other important items, including seeds for home gardens.
Many of these “seed libraries“ aren’t actually conventional libraries: They may be a service organized by neighborhoods, schools or other kinds of organizations. The common factor is that they are all a free community resource that offers locals the opportunity to grow everything from fruits and vegetables to flowers and native plants. All they ask is that patrons return the “borrowed” seeds by way of harvesting new seeds from the grown plants.
According to an article published in The Library Quarterly, the first seed library in a public library was established in 2004 in Gardiner, N.Y. At the time the piece was published, in 2018, the author noted that there were more than 450 seed libraries around the world but acknowledged that the number could be low. That didn’t even take into account all of the unofficial seed libraries found within communities.
That tally now includes a new outdoor native seed library hosted by the Vallecitos Water District at its San Marcos headquarters. It fits right in with the water district’s drought tolerant demonstration garden, which was created to encourage people to change their landscaping. The idea for the seed library came from the water district’s public information representative, Lisa Urabe, who is a master gardener. It fits in with the organization’s greater water-saving goals.
“From a water district perspective, we have so many customers who want to put in a drought tolerant landscape, but it can be costly,” she explained. “We try and help them, but it can be costly. So, the idea behind it was if we could provide seeds at no charge for our customers and help them out, not only it would be a win/win because they’d see the water savings, but also they would be planting natives, which are good for the wildlife.”
Many libraries use their old multidrawer card catalogs to house their seed packets, but because those are “insanely expensive,” Urabe said, she picked up a trunk for about $50 at a local antique shop and refurbished it. She purchased plastic boxes on Amazon for the seed packets, to keep the moisture out. Across the walkway from the seed library is a typical little free library, which is stocked with gardening books that people can borrow.
Urabe learned how to operate the seed library from the Audubon Society website. The San Diego Audubon chapter sent her a starter kit with signage in English and Spanish, some starter seeds and labels, and they sent her to the California Native Plant Society-San Diego Chapter to buy additional seeds for restocking. A drawer in the trunk also holds brochures about the plants, and there’s a QR code that pulls up information about growing and harvesting the seeds.
“The native seed library program at San Diego Audubon is part of our advocacy program,” explained Kelcy Coleman, native seed library coordinator and conservation assistant with San Diego Audubon. “Through grants, we were able to obtain seeds from the California Native Plant Society and Native West Nursery.”
These help the organization launch seed libraries across San Diego County.
The California Native Plant Society-San Diego Chapter, another partner with the Vallecitos Water District seed library, focuses on collecting, cleaning, sorting and packaging native seeds. The group’s public outreach person, Sherry Ashbaugh, noted that they sell seeds to chapter members and the general public. San Diego Audubon buys them, and other seed libraries buy them directly.
“We just want to give people the opportunity to try and grow native plants in their own yard,” she said. “And these partnerships help get the message out that these native plants support wildlife.”
One of their patrons is a young woman named Sera Shevchenko, a doctoral student in occupational therapy at the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences in San Marcos. She’s determined to visit as many local seed libraries as she can. At the apartment she shares with her husband, they have a little patio with good sun.
“Gardening is my form of self-care and stress relief while I’m in grad school,” she explained. “My father and I built a raised bed and I’m on a learning curve for what works here. I want to plant natives but didn’t know where to get the seeds or how to care for them. I want to transition my little patio garden to something that would thrive in the local climate and support the birds and butterflies here.
“I love these seed libraries because it just makes me feel like our community is making the effort to support others, to bettering the environment, and bettering education.”
If people are aware of seed libraries, it’s likely that they’ve come across them in their local library.
The city of San Diego currently has eight libraries with seed library programs. The “OG” is Ocean Beach, which is run by branch manager Christy Rickey Meister. It was launched in 2019, before she was at the branch, by a staff member who had heard about seed libraries, and it uses a card catalog to house packets of seeds.
“She was really inspired and thought it would be a good fit for the community,” Meister said. “She got donations from seed companies and local businesses and worked with our Friends of the Ocean Beach Library to get a city [Community Projects, Programs, and Services] grant to help fund the costs.”
The costs include, of course, buying seeds. San Diego Seed Company is a vendor. So is the California Native Plant Society-San Diego Chapter.
“We’ve also used Seed Savers Exchange,” added Meister. “And we also get donations from the community. Some are seeds they’ve harvested. Others are folks who have extra seeds they purchased but didn’t use, and they bring them to us.”
All of the city’s seed libraries have different borrowing policies. At the Ocean Beach Library, patrons don’t require a library card. Anyone can come in and take seeds, but they’re limited to three packets at a time to make sure there are enough for all who want them. Also available near the seed library are resources to help borrowers learn how to grow the seeds, as well as books on gardening. In addition, the library hosts workshops and other informational programs. In June, for example, a master gardener gave a talk about seed saving, explaining different ways to harvest seeds.
Meister estimates that around 20 people a month borrow seeds. For inventory purposes, borrowers complete a little sheet noting what they’re taking.
Darryle Williams, Jr. is a library assistant III at the Skyline Hills Library in southeastern San Diego. He said their seed library has been operating for about two years.
“It was started to help the community be more self-sustaining at home after COVID, so that, instead of having to go to the grocery store, they could grow fruits and vegetables in their own backyard,” he explained. “We get donations from seed companies, but we also partnered with Paradise Gardeners, who are community gardeners in the Skyline, Paradise and Paradise Valley area. They offered to buy us different types of seeds. And we also have our Friends of the Library that offer to purchase seeds for us when we run low.”
To help their borrowers, Williams bought a calendar from San Diego Seed Company to identify what plants to grow each month. Utilizing that, he can stock up the library’s seed catalog with the appropriate seasonal seeds.
The program has been wildly successful. In just two years, they’ve packaged and distributed more than 5,000 seed packets. Like the OB library, they also offer programs that teach composting, soil work, harvesting and the all-important techniques of harvesting and saving seeds. Borrowers at Skyline Hills Library complete a form that acknowledges they will try to donate some seeds back to the library — whether from their plants or purchased — as well as notes on what they’ve taken. Borrowers can take three to six packets at a time.
The city of Chula Vista got an earlier start at seed libraries locally. According to Natalie Vega, the interim branch manager and librarian at the Otay Ranch Library, their seed library launched in 2014.
“It was very small, a cabinet with six little drawers,” she recalled. “It was a popular idea. People were constantly taking seeds and then would come in to show us what they were growing. But staff was purchasing the seeds, so it wasn’t sustainable and went away pretty quickly.
“But when I saw that the California State Library had a grant called Sustainable California Libraries, I thought it was the perfect way to really create the seed libraries for Chula Vista,” Vega said. “I applied, and we were one of 15 libraries awarded the grant in August 2023; it was for about $30,000. Not only did it allow us to have it at our branch, we could have it at the other two branch libraries.”
With the grant, they purchased cabinets for holding the seeds and funded programs that went around the area to spark interest in the community. They hosted seed-saving workshops at each of the branches and expanded it to National City seed libraries. The seed library officially launched in May 2024 and will operate in spring and summer months.
“As people understood how to do this, they could replenish our seeds from what they grew and harvested,” said Vega. “At the same time, you’re building a sense of community.
“We did notice, too, as we were writing our grant, that the cost of everything is so expensive, so we thought, why don’t we try to teach our community some food resiliency? We can show them ‘You can grow vegetables, you can grow fruits.’ We could show them that there’s a way to have nutritious food that they don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for.”
One of the programs they held was a storytime session with members of the Resource Conservation District of Greater San Diego County. The agency partners with local institutions and landowners to help protect the watershed and educate residents about conservation.
“They came out and we read a book to the kids,” Vega recalled. “Then the Resource Conservation District guests dissected a plant, showed the kids the parts of the plant and explained how pollinators like bees take the pollen and pollinate different plants. Then the kids got to draw flowers and took home seeds to plant to help the pollinators.”
Children are an important audience for seed libraries. On the Barona Band of Mission Indians’ reservation near Lakeside, the Barona Cultural Center & Museum involves students at the adjacent Barona Indian Charter School. Laurie Egan-Hedley, director and curator of the museum, works on an annual project for the school’s seventh-graders on their seed library.
She explained that the seed library opened in May 2022 as a seventh-grade project. At that point they’re studying ethnobiology, “the way the ancestors and the people continue to use plants.” The school has an ethnobotany garden that the students — all seven of them — take care of, and they just opened a pollinator garden.
“They’re out there, weeding and watering and learning the lifecycle of the plants, what grows here, what doesn’t grow here and why the Creator gave them these plants,” Egan-Hedley said.
She had been working with San Diego Audubon chapter, learned about their seed library program and it seemed a perfect fit for her students. They started harvesting seeds from the plants in their native garden, researched Kumeyaay language names for the seeds and, now, said Egan-Hedley, San Diego Audubon can send out library starter seed packages with labels that include the Kumeyaay names.
The students also created a video that’s on their website that details the seed-saving steps. The actual seed library, housed in the museum, is an old card catalog that the kids repurposed and painted. Anyone in the community can come in and borrow seeds.
“The seed libraries are bringing the community together for a common goal,” said Meister. “Planting more food, planting more native plants. And when people harvest the seeds from the plants they’ve had success with, then we get seeds acclimated to the micro climate. That’s one of the big goals of seed libraries, to really tailor what’s available to the actual climate that you’re in.”
Start a seed library
If you want to create a seed library for your neighborhood, you can get great information on the San Diego Audubon website, www.sandiegoaudubon.org. Go to their Resources & FAQs section and click on the link for native seed libraries.
They also include a basic primer on collecting seeds:
• Harvest when seeds are dry and brown or berries are red and are drying out.• Carefully remove seed pods by hand or cut berries and flowers at the stem with clean pruning shears. Place berries on a paper bag, pods and flowers in a plastic bin.• Help plants release seeds by breaking apart fruiting organs in flowers or seed pods using a glove. Release the seeds.• Separate the seeds from plant debris with a screen or chicken wire. For berries, smash them against the screen to release the seeds. Wash with water, let dry, and repeat until seeds are clean and separated.• Package seeds in a small paper envelope and label the packets with correct name. Now they can be returned to the library.
Adapted from San Diego Audubon.
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