What is a seed library?

A seed library is a communal collection of seeds.  Gardeners, novice to avid, can borrow seeds to plant and enjoy, and/or donate seeds for others.  By sharing seeds, we increase community resilience, food sovereignty, and food accessibility for ourselves and our neighbors.  This seed library is a joint project between the Clear Lake Public Library and Central Gardens of North Iowa.

How do I use the seed library?

You don’t need anything but interest to get started!

Stop by and check out the current selection. Flip through the reference book if you aren’t sure what a plant looks like, or just peruse the shelves in the category of interest: vegetables, herbs, or flowers/grasses.  If you find a seed packet that piques your interest, take it home and try your hand at growing it!  All the growing instructions are included on the packet.

There is no real ‘limit’ to how many packets you can take, but we do request that you base your ‘shopping’ on how many of each type of seed are available. For instance, we tend to have a lot of native flowers available, so several packets per person generally isn’t a problem.  Vegetable and herb seeds generally come in smaller batches, so it may be more appropriate to only take one or two packets to try.

One of the most important parts of the seed library is saving seed to put back into it for the next year.  If you aren’t able to, or don’t know how to, save seeds, please consider donating purchased seeds (can even be partially used packets if they are still viable) for others.  Look for our seed harvesting workshops in late summer/fall.

Reminder: The seed library is not necessarily meant to seed your entire plantings for the year, but give you an opportunity to try new varieties or supplement food availability without the upfront cost.

Seed saving is a fun and rewarding skill, but there is definitely a learning curve.  You can learn more about the seeds you can save (open-pollinated, non-hybrid, etc.), as well as when and how to collect them with these resources:

It’s easy! Find a donation form in the Seed Library cabinet. Fill it out and place it with the seeds you’re donating.  It’s important to give us as much information about your seeds as possible so that we can write accurate sowing instructions for other gardeners. Turn your seeds and form into the desk.

Please do not place packets of seeds directly into the seed library.  We periodically count the packets to determine how many packets are distributed, so it’s important that we factor donations into our count!

Our seed library started in Spring 2022.  To date (June 2025), we’ve distributed over 3,700 packets!