Become a Seed Library Member!

Learn Seed-Saving Techniques and Save 10% on all Purchases

Our innovative seed library program is based on the popular “Community Reads” or “One Book, One Town” reading programs organized by book libraries all over the country. By encouraging every member in the Seed Library to grow the same variety in the same season, we’ll be able to connect all of our gardens into one big seed farm—growing enough seeds of this variety to share with friends, family, and our communities.

This is our third year of running the seed library in this way. Last year's Community Seed was Van Gogh Dwarf Sunflowers. This year's new Community Seed is BYO (Breed Your Own) Zucchini. This fun mix is an invitation to take part in a tradition as old as civilization: backyard plant breeding. Grow a few zucchini plants, see which ones you like, then follow our monthly how-to instructions to learn how to identify desirable traits, make selections, perform crosses, and process and save seed. (While you wait for the season to start, enjoy the festively designed Art Pack created by Sarah Snow!)

Membership costs $10 and lasts the calendar year (i.e., all memberships purchased in winter/spring of 2015 will provide discounts on our website through December 31st, 2015).

{{block type="core/template" name="membership-add" template="catalog/product/view/membership.phtml"}}

Here are some more specifics about our membership program.

• Seed-Saving Savvy

  Learn to be a seed saver!

  Learn in detail how to grow, harvest, eat, and save seeds from the annual community seed variety.

  Over time, you’ll become a better gardener and skilled seed saver for many different varieties. Seeds saved and returned from the annual community seed variety will be pooled together and donated to deserving garden projects like school gardens, food banks, and community garden groups.

  This year's new Community Seed is Breed Your Own Zucchini, a fun, colorful, and diverse mix of zucchini varieties.

  Where did the diversity of all our heirloom varieties come from? From purposeful hand-pollinating, happy insect-inspired accidents, careful creative crosses, and the vision and artistry of human hands throughout the ages. Sow why stop now? Together we can create the heirlooms of tomorrow. We’ll help you learn how with this year’s B.Y.O. Zucchini mix. Each pack contains a random mix of zucchini seeds. Learn how to select the ones you love or invent new combinations.

  About this year's limited edition Membership Kit Art Pack: We believe that artists are cultural seed savers, and seed-savers are agri-cultural artists. We think of breeding new open-pollinated varieties as an art form. Here, Sarah Snow reimagines the cross-pollination of zucchini as a collage of vintage patterned papers: collecting pieces of the past to create something deliciously new.

• 10% off all online and event purchases in 2015

  This year, your membership gives you a flat 10% discount on all purchases, including at shows and events. While this is a change from our previous system, it makes it much easier for us to offer the best prices on all of our products to as many customers as possible. Please note that this discount does not apply to purchases made at retail locations that carry our seeds.

• Seedy Satisfaction

  Feel good about your seed dollars.
  

  Your membership directly supports our farm work preserving, celebrating, and developing heirloom and open-pollinated varieties.

  This helps keep our seed farm, where we do everything by hand, growing. Membership allows us to continue our work increasing the diversity and availability of open-pollinated seeds and teaching seed saving skills to gardeners and farmers. Every member is a stand against corporate control of seeds and a step towards seed sovereignty. Thank you!

  Each year we'll let you know when it's time to nominate school gardens and community groups for seed donations. In addition, keep an eye out for our annual donations program of other heirloom seeds. Last year we donated over 3000 packs of seeds to deserving groups.