Join Tilth for Learning at Seed Swap

The Great Seattle Seed Swap is just around the corner — coming on Saturday, Feb. 24, 1-4 p.m. at the Phinney Center. Bring your home-saved or leftover packets of seeds, or just come to pick up some new varieties and talk seeds with other gardeners.

This year a series of presentations by Tilth Alliance will deepen your understanding of seed-saving.

Make some time for these hands-on activities and fun educational presentations:

  • 1:30 p.m. — Beginner Friendly Seed Saving
    • We’ll discuss the basic biology of seed saving and share some beginner-friendly recommendations to get started saving (and then sharing!) your own seeds.
  • 2:30 p.m. — Harvesting Seeds
    • How do you know if your seeds are mature and ready to harvest? We’ll discuss how to assess seed maturity and some strategies for harvesting.
  • 3:30 p.m. — Basics of Wet & Dry Processing
    • Join us to experience a demonstration and explanation of common wet & dry seed processing techniques. We’ll share a demonstration and give folks an opportunity to get some hands-on practice.

There will be a table with seeds and screens where you can try your hand at seed harvesting–and take home some freshly harvested seed!

seeds on a swap table

You can also ask questions and learn from these great nonprofits that will be tabling: The Garden Hotline, Master Composters/Sustainability Stewards, Seattle Tree Fruit Society, Sustainable Ballard, Rainwise, Seattle REconomy.org, Sustainable NE Seattle and City Fruit.

And if you’d like to bring seeds (not required), make sure they’re labeled with the variety name and date, bring only seeds that are not too old to plant (2021 or later). You can even bring cuttings or divisions of edible plants if you’d like.

The event is shaping up to be the best one in our 10-plus years. Join us there!

Follow our Facebook event for updates, and let us know you’re coming!

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.

Oregon Sugar Pod II peas

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.
Purple peas in flower

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.