About – Page 2 – King County Seed Lending Library

November 21, 2018December 26, 2018

Share, Learn, Grow at Our Seed Swaps

Sprout some new ideas for your edible garden in January! Come to the annual Seed Swaps presented by our King County Seed Lending Library branches.

Along with seeds of favorite vegetables, you will find enthusiastic fellow gardeners to share their best varieties. Many attendees at last year’s swap brought their own seeds.

Seed Swaps will be Saturday, Feb. 2 in Northwest Seattle and Snoqualmie Valley, and Saturday, Feb. 9 in Northeast Seattle and Feb. 24 in West Seattle. (See details on our Events page.)

shoppers 2017 swap

At the swap, stick around to learn about both ends of the gardening year. There will be short workshops on seed starting and seed saving. If you save your own, you can make a deposit to the library’s seed bank at next year’s swap.

Bring your edible garden seed to share. It can be commercial or home-grown seed, but please follow these guidelines:

Share only seeds of edible plants that your fellow gardeners would grow from seed, such as annual vegetables, herbs and edible flowers.
If donating packaged seed, it should be organic or open-pollinated or heirloom.
If donating home-saved seed, please clean it off the stems or stalks and bring only the seed.
You can clean your seed at the swap. We will have screens and buckets available.
All shared seed should be fresh, within three years of purchase or saving.
Please label all donations with seed type, variety if known, and year it was grown/saved.

The Seed Swaps are free and open to all; bringing seed is not required.

The King County Seed Lending Library has five locations around the county, all operated by volunteers and supported solely by donations.

Seed donation

July 24, 2017September 28, 2017

New Logo in Place, Thanks to Designer Donation

You may have noticed a lovely new sunflower gracing the pages of this website and our Facebook page. It is the centerpiece of our new logo, created by JoEllen Wang of Tiny Beast Design.

All of us at the King County Seed Lending Library want to give a big thanks to JoEllen for her lovely design and hard work creating it. Thanks also to Krista Staudacher, our West Seattle coordinator, who worked closely with JoEllen to make it happen.

JoEllen is a West Seattle architect who offers a full range of services to commercial and residential clients.

This is the third logo for the King County Seed Lending Library. Our image has evolved from a dandelion seedhead to an umbel of parsley seeds. The sunflower was chosen for its cheeriness and abundant edible seeds.

JoEllen also provided us with a color palette and a version of the logo to use on stamps, which will be used to label envelopes. The stamp will premiere at our annual Seed Swap, coming up next January.

May 13, 2017May 13, 2017

Seattle Farm Co-op Debuts Seed Library at Plant Swap

Free plants? And free seeds? Can it be true?

Yes, this Sunday, May 14, 1-3 p.m. at the Seattle Farm Co-op in Rainier Valley, gardeners can take part in a free plant swap.

As if that’s not enough, the co-op will have edible seeds to browse and share — because they have become the newest location for the King County Seed Lending Library!

Farm Co-op plant swap

The plant swap is co-sponsored by the farm co-op and the Rainier Valley Rotary Club. They invite all Southeast Seattle gardeners to bring plants to swap and bring gardening questions.

The Farm Co-op store will be open, so you can browse the gardening supplies and animal feed. The co-op hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

January 18, 2017January 23, 2017

Four Seed Swaps Coming: Learn and Share

Details are coming together for the Great Seattle Seed Swap, sponsored by the King County Seed Lending Library. Three swaps are planned around the city, with a fourth being held by our friends in the Snoqualmie Valley.

The first event is the 4th annual Seed Swap in Northwest Seattle (share our Facebook event), set for Saturday, Jan. 28, which is National Seed Swap Day. Get some seeds, visit with exhibitors Seattle Tilth, P-Patch, Resilient Seeds and the Seattle Farm Co-op, and enjoy three 15-minute workshops.

Details of each swap:

Northwest Seattle: Sat., Jan. 28, 1-3 p.m., Phinney Neighborhood Center, 6532 Phinney Ave. N., in the Community Hall of the Brick Building

Snoqualmie Valley: Sat., Feb. 4, 11 a.m.–2:30 p.m., Cedarcrest High School, 29000 NE 150th St., Duvall

Northeast Seattle: Sat., Feb. 11, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Meadowbrook Community Center, NE 105th and 35th Ave/ NE

West Seattle: date/time TBA

How to participate:

Please bring seeds if you have them. They can be homegrown or store-bought — even partially used packets. They should be recent, 3 years old or less. No hybrids or GMO seeds.
If you will be bringing seeds to swap, please arrive at the beginning of the event to set out your seeds.
Make a display card for your seeds stating the variety, year saved, and brief notes about growing the plant.
It is not necessary to bring seeds to participate.
Seeds will be organized by type of vegetables, herbs and edible flowers.
Attendees will be asked to limit the seeds they take so all may share in the supply.
You may donate your extra seeds to the seed lending library, which will have them available throughout the year.

At the Northwest Seattle event, enjoy these 15-minute workshops:

1:30-1:45 Basic Seed Saving – Laura Matter, Seattle Tilth

2:00-2:15 Make a Seed Ball! – Christy Cusick, Seattle Farm Co-op

2:30-2:45 Meet Our Bioregional Seed Companies – Bill Thorness, KCSLL

A resource table of books, seed catalogs and other material will be available for browsing.

At the Northeast Seattle event on Feb. 11, gardening author Bill Thorness, coordinator of the Northwest Seattle library branch, will give a lunchtime talk on seed starting and the seed-saving movement at noon.

November 16, 2016November 20, 2016

Our new site

Welcome to our new website. We are evolving our online presence to Pea shoot better serve our community.

Most of the seed-saving articles, resources and links have been moved over from the old site. If you do not find something that you previously saw on our old site, drop us a line and we’ll try to get it for you.

Are you a web expert? We’re always looking for enthusiastic volunteers to share their talents, and would welcome help with our website.