Events – King County Seed Lending Library

March 19, 2023March 19, 2023

What Will You Grow? Find New Treasures at the Seed Swap!

It’s always exciting to try new edible crops in the garden. Not only do you keep things fresh, which is a great goal for life as well as the kitchen, but a bit of a challenge can turn into a delightful achievement.

So why not try a new variety at the Great Seattle Seed Swap?

Browse the tables under signs for crop categories like Salad Greens, Tomatoes or Brassicas (and find out what Brassicas are-it’s OK if you don’t know). Ask another swapper what they’ve tried. Look up a variety in the stack of catalogs on a nearby table. Then just shake a few seeds into a packet, label it, and take home your treasure.

The goal of the King County Seed Lending Library is to celebrate seed. Sending you home with a new variety that may surprise you when it pops up out of the soil is the best way.

What seeds will be at the Swap?

The lending library has a supply of seeds donated by gardeners and seed companies that range from salad greens to squashes.

Some people will come to the swap with their extra seed packets or home-saved seeds (it’s not required but encouraged, just like masking!). And every year a couple of seed companies send us donations of seed to share.

This year we will enjoy selections from our friends at Adaptive Seeds in Bellingham and High Mowing Organic Seeds in Vermont. Seed from two wonderful corners of the country!

We can’t list all the types of crops and varieties that will be on the tables, but that’s part of the fun. Come and find out!

Thank you Adaptive Seeds for this cheery delivery!

Bundles of High Mowing seeds wait to be discovered.

What else happens at the Swap?

Glad you asked! Some fantastic greening organizations and community partners will join us with tables of their own. Get your gardening questions answered, learn about growing fruit in your yard, and find out how to borrow tools from a community tool library!

These great groups will be on hand:

The Garden Hotline, managed by Tilth Alliance
City Fruit
Seattle Tree Fruit Society
Sustainable Ballard
Sustainable Northeast Seattle
The Phinney Tool Lending Library

If you want a bit of education with your seeds, we will also hold a short talk on the basics of seed saving.

The Great Seattle Seed Swap is Saturday, April 1, 2-4 p.m., at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, 6532 Phinney Ave. N., in the Community Hall of the Brick Building. See our Facebook event.

March 26, 2022March 26, 2022

Join us at the Seed Swap!

Interesting lettuce? New tomato? Sunflowers for solidarity with Ukraine? Join the Seed Library for the return of our Great Seattle Seed Swap! It’s our first since 2019, and we can’t wait to share seeds with you.

The swap will be Saturday, April 16, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, 6532 Phinney Ave. N., in the Community Hall of the Brick Building.

Recent donations from the Organic Seed Alliance of their “Teddybear Sunflowers” and from High Mowing seeds will provide new choices for seed-swappers to try this year.

OSA’s Semi-Teddybear Mix. Photo by Bill Thorness.

See our Facebook event and let us know you’re coming!

Do you have seeds to share? Here’s a guide to our preferences for seed-sharing:

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, plant types that will produce seed true to the stated variety. Heirlooms are by definition open-pollinated.
If donating home-saved seed, please winnow and clean it off the stems or stalks as much as possible and bring only the seed.
If you can’t clean it in advance, plan to spend some time cleaning it the swap. We will have screens and buckets available.
All shared seed should be fresh, within three years of purchase or saving.
Label all seed donations with seed type, variety if known, and year it was grown/saved.
Bring envelopes and a pen to store and label your new seeds.

Look forward to seeing you in person soon!

April 28, 2020February 10, 2021

NE Seattle Branch to Take Virtual Orders

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:

Browse the current NE Seattle branch seed inventory list.
Take note of the crop and common name of each seed you would like.
Please limit your order to 10 items.
Send an email with your list and name to susanjoel@earthlink.net. Please write “Seed Order” in the email subject line.
We will package and label your seeds (small quantities only, regardless of our “KCSLL Supply” designation).
If we run out of an item, we might substitute another variety of the same crop.
We will respond with an email telling you where you can pick up your seeds.

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.

December 19, 2019January 22, 2020

First Seed Swap of 2020 Set for Jan. 25, Two More on Feb. 8

Sprout some new ideas for your edible garden! Come to the annual Great Seattle Seed Swap hosted at the Phinney Center by the King County Seed Lending Library.

The Northwest Seattle swap will be Saturday, January 25, 2-4 p.m. in the Community Center of the PNA’s Brick Building (lower parking lot).

If you can’t make that one,two more swaps will be held on Saturday, February 8, one in northeast Seattle and the other in the Snoqualmie Valley town of Duvall. (See our Events page for details on these swaps.)

Along with seeds of favorite vegetables, you will find enthusiastic fellow gardeners eager to share their best varieties. Nearly half of the 100 attendees at last year’s Northwest Seattle swap brought their own seeds. But bringing seeds to swap is not required.

What’s more, generous seed organizations are sharing seed with us. Oregon’s Adaptive Seeds, Bellingham’s Resilient Seeds and the Organic Seed Alliance from the Olympic Peninsula are all contributing unique varieties for Seattle gardeners to try. (A huge note of thanks to them for their contributions!)

At the swap, stick around to learn about both ends of the gardening year, from sowing to harvest–and beyond. There will be short workshops on seed saving and other gardening topics. If you learn to save some of your own seeds at harvest time, you can make a deposit to the library’s seed supply at next year’s swap!

Tilth Alliance, Seattle Tree Fruit Society, Sustainable Ballard and the PNA Tool Lending Library will be on hand to share information and more gardening opportunities. Also, there will be a table of seed catalogs and books for research, and a table with supplies for cleaning and processing your seed.

Bring your edible garden seed to share if you have it. 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.

We hope you can join us to learn and share the joys of growing our own food from seed. The seed swaps are free and open to all.

See event updates on our Facebook event page.