King County Seed Lending Library
A Seattle-area community saving and sharing seeds
Hi friends of the Seed Library! Our quiet gardening season is now at an end. The seeds have been retired to their winter home in a cool, dark back room.
It’s been a tough year to share seeds, with fewer open hours and no chances to get together. We hope that next year will see some return to normalcy. May the autumn bring you peace.
Hello gardeners and seed-swapping friends. We have a happy/sad message for our community.
The sad news is that we won’t be holding any seed swaps this year due to the coronavirus. That is probably not a surprise to most of you.
The happy news is that seeds are available in two of our locations, and more locations may reopen in the near future.
Two KCSLL branches are resuming seed sharing in their respective locations. Both the NE Seattle branch and the NW Seattle branch are located in their community tool libraries, which are now reopened with limited hours.
— The NE Seattle branch is open Tuesdays and Thursdays 5-8 pm and Saturday 9 am-noon.
— The NW Seattle branch is open Saturdays 9 am-1 pm.
— Both branches are limiting the number of simultaneous visitors and requiring coronavirus precautions such as wearing a mask and observing a 6-foot social distancing rule.
Due to limited display space, the NW Seattle branch is only offering seeds of crops that can be sown now. Seeds of warm-weather crops like tomatoes, peppers, beans and squash will be made available in early spring.
Seeds can also be donated at these two locations, but please observe these guidelines: pre-clean any homegrown seed, put it in a compact package, and label it with the crop, variety name, and year saved. Partial seed packets may be donated as well; please tape them shut.
Please continue to watch this blog and our Facebook page for updates on seed availability at other locations or expanded hours. Current location hours and a link to spreadsheets of available seeds at these two branches are available on our Locations page.
NOTE: This post is from 2020; seed orders are not being filled in this manner in 2021.
The Northeast Seattle branch of the seed library will now begin taking orders to be filled virtually. Recipients will pick up orders in the Ravenna neighborhood.
Visit the Seed Library page on the NE Seattle Tool Library’s website to learn more about this branch.
Here’s how it will work:
Seed orders will be taken to our pickup location twice a week. Each order will be packaged with the recipient’s name on the bag. We suggest you take the same precautions when handling the package as you would at a grocery store. To be extra-safe, use gloves when taking the seed order home, then let it sit for 72 hours before opening it. We also ask that recipients practice proper social distancing if another recipient is at the pickup location.
Unfortunately, we are unable to take seed donations at this time. Please (safely) share with your neighbors and friends! Hopefully, we will be able to reopen our physical branches and resume regular activity later this spring.
NOTE: This post is from 2020; seed orders are not being filled in this manner in 2021.
We are delighted that we’ve found a way to share seeds during this difficult time. In our first week, we have served several dozen gardeners, from a third-grader to a neighbor group. Our seed supply is getting short on some items, but we are happy to get the seeds into peoples’ gardens while it is still relatively fresh and viable. Thank you for your patience as our intrepid volunteers fit this task into their full lives. Shout out to Polly for all her help!
Here are a few images of the process at the NW Seattle branch, starting from cataloging the seeds to filling and packaging up the orders.
With the current craze to start or revive an edible garden, seed companies have been hit hard. They need to keep their workers safe while filling mountains of orders. Some have stopped taking orders temporarily, or are only shipping to commercial farmers. Many report turnaround times of two weeks to ship an order.
Still, these small businesses deserve our support. Seeds are alive and need to be planted while fresh. So we plead with our supporters to please patronize our bioregional seed companies. Check multiple companies to see who is shipping now. Be patient. Thank them for their work.
Here is a list of seed companies. Those with an asterisk * are outside of the Washington-Oregon region. (Please let us know if we’ve missed any that you think we should include.)
Adaptive Seeds www.adaptiveseeds.com
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds https://www.rareseeds.com/
Deep Harvest Seeds www.deepharvestfarm.com
Fedco Seeds https://www.fedcoseeds.com/ *
Filaree Garlic Farm www.filareefarm.com
Horizon Herbs www.horizonherbs.com
Irish Eyes Garden Seeds www.irisheyesgardenseeds.com
Johnny’s Selected Seeds https://www.johnnyseeds.com/ *
Kitazawa Seed Company (CA) www.kitazawaseed.com *
New Dimension Seed www.newdimensionseed.com
Nichols Garden Nursery www.nicholsgardennursery.com
Osborne Seed Company www.osborneseed.com
Peace Seeds www.peaceseedslive.blogspot.com
Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply (CA) www.groworganic.com *
Renee’s Garden Seeds https://www.reneesgarden.com/ *
Resilient Seeds https://www.resilientseeds.com/
Seed Savers Exchange (IA) www.seedsavers.org *
Seeds Trust/High Altitude Seeds (CO) www.seedstrust.com *
Seattle Seed Company www.seattleseed.com
Siskiyou Seeds www.siskiyouseeds.com
Snake River Seed Cooperative (ID) www.snakeriverseeds.com *
Sustainable Seed Company www.sustainableseedco.com
Territorial Seed Company www.territorialseed.com
Uprising Seeds www.uprisingorganics.com
Victory Seed Company www.victoryseeds.com
Wild Garden Seed www.wildgardenseed.com
*beyond Washington or Oregon