this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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As we in the northern hemisphere are entering peak seed-gathering season, you should know about seed libraries!

Seed libraries and seed exchanges are places where gardeners can donate, receive, and/or swap seeds they've gathered. You can often find them at community centers and public libraries. This year instead of cleaning up your bolting/flowering plants, why not let them go to seed? My local library was thrilled to receive donations of seeds I gathered from my garden; it sounds like their seed library is quite popular, but there are more people interested in receiving seeds than giving them.

There are tons of seed saving resources online, but here are some quick tips from my personal experience:

  • You don't need a garden to seed save; some people gather wild plant seeds for use in home gardens to improve biodiversity in settled areas. A hike at the right time of year and a little knowledge of native plants can go a long way! As with all foraging, only take sustainable amounts of seeds.

  • Most seed-saving resources focus on vegetables and other edible plants, but consider saving seeds from ornamental flowers too, especially native and pollinator-supporting species.

  • Don't save seeds from hybrids; they won't turn out like the parent plant. If in doubt, "open pollinated" plants and wildflowers are the way to go.

  • Many plants cross-pollinate in unwanted (occasionally dangerous, e.g. in the case of carrots) ways. Seed saving works best when only one variety of a species is blooming at a time, and when there's not opportunity for a neighbor's or wild plants to contaminate the fertilization process. Because of this there may only be a few plants in your garden that you can save seeds from, and that's okay!

  • You don't need a large garden to seed save; you'd be shocked how many seeds even a single plant can produce (especially in the case of self-pollinating species).

  • Letting plants go to flower and then to seed is great for wildlife. Tons of insects and birds come to my garden every year specifically because of the vegetable plants I allow to bolt, as well as for my flowering perennials like herbs. The visits continue through the winter, when critters scavenge for fallen seeds.

  • While you can use ziploc baggies, pill containers, and other repurposed containers for seed saving, you can also buy dedicated seed bags, which I highly recommend if you're collecting seeds to exchange/give away later (compact size, durable, easy to label, relatively cheap, easily recognizable).

  • When donating to a seed library, the more information you can provide about your seeds the better! It's a bit more work, but I always make sure to label my seed donation bags with the plant's common name, scientific name, variety name (if applicable), and a few short bullet points about the species (e.g. "native perennial, pink flowers, bee magnet.").


I love seed libraries because in addition to making gardening more accessible for everyone, they allow me to share with my community the plants that I've found grow especially well in my climate, as well as plants I've found are especially beloved by local wildlife. Seed saving for me is a labor of love, both for people and for animals!

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[–] The_v@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

A few things to be aware of:

Seed is the number 1 way that pathogens, insects and weeds are transmitted around the globe.

Do NOT save seed from unhealthy looking plants. Many viruses, bacteria, and fungi can be transmitted via seed.

Make sure you know the proper sanitation procedures before sharing seeds. For example all tomatoes seeds need to be extracted via acid extraction to prevent transmission of bacterial canker. Pepper seed need to be treated with a TSP bath to eliminate TMV. All cucurbits need to be treated with a peroxide to eliminate bacterial fruit blotch.

Be sure you know 100% what you are harvesting is the seed from the plant. Many weed seeds look identical to many common garden varieties.

Know the basic reproductive biology of the species you want to save. This can help to unintentional outcrossing and mixing of varieties..

Please save seeds from F1 hybrids. Selection from amanteur seedsavers/breeders have maintained/generated some of the most important traits we have. Feel free to make your own crosses introgressing important resistant genes into landraces.

Before sharing carefully inspect the seed to ensure you have no unpleasant hitchhikers in the seed. An observational microscope can help with this.

[–] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 1 points 12 hours ago

Loving the passion here. Great post.

I really struggle to grow from seeds but I'm good at reviving struggling plants. Need more practice.

[–] aramis87@fedia.io 5 points 22 hours ago

If you purchase seeds at a store, you can also donate the seeds you're not going to use. Like, "oh, this packet of tomato seeds has 100 seeds in it" - instead of letting the excess sit on a shelf degrading over the next several years, keep whatever ones you think you'll reasonably use, then donate the rest to the seed library.

Also, the last Saturday of January is National Seed Swap Day: put a reminder in your calendar to check for swaps in your area. There will be some more swaps in February and March, but it's a good time to start thinking about what you're planting.

Also, if you're growing older seeds and started some extra plants in case some seeds didn't sprout and now you have extras, check for plant swaps in your area: it's a good way to get rid of spares, and a nice way to pick up something you might not have thought about planting this year.

[–] Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 1 points 17 hours ago

Durham county libraries in NC have a seed library program run by digging Durham, its fuckin great!!

[–] trainsrkool@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

this should be the year i start my garden hehe

[–] SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Uhh that’s exactly why you don’t use a seed library, bolted seeds are stressed plants and seeds are more likely to have issues next year. You can’t trust public sourced seeds to be good seeds.

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

bolted seeds are stressed plants

??? This is literally the normal lifecycle of many plants

[–] SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bolting? No that’s premature flowering from a stress like heat or under watering.

The plant feels it’s not going to get a full life cycle, so it pumps hormones into itself and spends all its energy going to flower early.

That’s not normal, and you don’t want those seeds, or any seeds from any stressed plant really.

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I suppose it depends on whether you use the term "bolting" to refer to premature flowering or just going to flower. I use the term rather liberally; feel free to replace "bolt" with "flower" in my post.

[–] SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world -1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

Yes, this is exactly why the public can’t be trusted to provide decent seeds…

Words have specific meanings, if you choose not to use them correctly, people are going to misinterpret what you say. It also doesn’t give people much hope that you actually know anything about the topic.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can actually do more harm to these libraries than you’re providing.

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

I live in a low income area where people are clearly happy to receive free resources, even if they're not perfect. Like my terminology; sorry it's not perfect either.

Seed saving is a tradition that predates history, yet most people don't practice it anymore for a variety of reasons, including for reasons akin to your attitude that home growers surely aren't going to do it as well as a corporation would. And thanks to this, many heirloom species and masses of genetic diversity are now lost forever. I didn't seed save for years because I was scared that I would do it wrong. And yes, I made some mistakes, but I keep trying anyway, and I hope my post has encouraged others to try too.

This isn't my area of expertise, and I learned something today about being more careful about the term "bolt." However I don't think you should be out here discouraging people from engaging in seed saving (or other crowdsorced community efforts) because there might be some mistakes or imperfections. No one is forcing you to participate; if you're too good for library seeds that's fine. But I find your attitude unnecessarily condescending and privileged. Again, I live in a low income area where these types of programs are cherished, because a packet of seeds may not seem expensive to you, but that's not everyone's experience. And I want to see more people gardening, regardless of their financial situation. Even if it's in pots, on a balcony, or yes, with imperfect, free seeds.