The Kwantlen Seed Library is taking root.
A project of Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s (KPU’s) Langley campus library, the Seed Library’s mission is to promote food security through the preservation and exchange of locally grown and harvested seeds by “lending” them to gardeners.
The process is simple: Visitors browse through the seed library before selecting no more than one envelope per type of seed.They then fill out a borrowing form (or a donation form, if donating seeds).
Seeds are checked out of the library at the front desk, using a KPU card. Once they take the seeds from the library, the borrowers are free to grow them, using the resources available at the library.
Saved seeds can be returned to the library after harvest.
You don’t have to be a KPU student to use the horticulture collection at the Langley campus library, or to use seeds from the Seed Library.
“That’s the plan — that they borrow (seeds), grow out, harvest the seeds, and bring them back,” said KPU librarian Celia Brinkerhoff, a co-ordinator of the Seed Library.
“And I’m happy to take donations of anything that’s grown locally.”
The primary focus of the Seed Library is mostly edible plants such as peas, corn, and onions, but seeds for flowers are also available.
The library is organized by the level of difficulty required to grow the seeds, from easy to intermediate.
“‘Easy’ meaning easy to grow and easy to stay true to the parent plant,” Brinkerhoff said. “So we’re talking about open-pollinated seeds, things that are non-GMO… your peas, your beans, squash. It’s really nice for the community who borrow these (seeds) to know they also have access to our (horticulture) book collection.”
The program was born in 2013 when Sheila Poznikoff from Glorious Organics farming co-operative in Aldergrove brought the idea to KPU, inspired by what she called a “seed library movement.”
“She proposed it to us,” Brinkerhoff said.
The Kwantlen Sustainable Greenhouse Club, that has since morphed into a new club of horticultural students called CoHORTS, took on the project and continues to be involved with the Seed Library.
“I sort of steward it, but it’s really a student project,” Brinkerhoff said.
“Several years ago, this was a movement that started in California in a public library. To my knowledge we were the first academic library, at least in Canada, to start this.”
Brinkerhoff said the KPU Seed Library is growing in popularity — as of May 7, 54 people had borrowed seeds from the school.
As well, KPU horticulture instructor Maria Valana offers a basic vegetable gardening workshop.
The Seed Library piggybacked off the Langley Farmers Market that was held indoors on Saturdays at KPU in the wintertime, with the Langley Environmental Partners Society (LEPS) coming on board as another key partner.
KPU’s Seed Library website says those co-ordinating the library believe by “retaining the right to grow our own food, save seeds, and share our knowledge with one another, we can help to make a positive change towards a sustainable future.”
“I’m not a seed scientist, but the vision is that over time we would develop this collection of really locally grown and locally adapted seeds — plants that really do well here in the Lower Fraser Valley,” Brinkerhoff said.
“It’s an opportunity for people to grow their own food. I think through that, we build a different relationship with nature.”
Located at KPU’s Langley campus, the Seed Library’s summer semester hours are:
• Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and
• closed Saturdays and Sundays.