Rethinking Lifestyle

As the winter wears on, many of us itch to start our garden plants and get our hands back in the soil. Unfortunately, job and supply chain disruptions over the past two growing seasons have made certain seeds harder to come by. Paper shortages have led to seed catalogue delays while an increasing interest in home gardening has caused the demand for some seed varieties to exceed the supply.

This could very well be a problem if it weren’t for the tremendous opportunities it provides.

“Out of stock” messages mean tracking down alternate sources, which can lead to the discovery of smaller seed suppliers, many of which offer unique and fun alternatives to the norm, such as heirloom, open-pollinated, or native varieties of vegetables, grains and flowers. Another opportunity comes in the form of seed saving and sharing.

For seasoned gardeners, seed saving is par for the course – a simple way of ensuring that our favourite or most successful foods and flowers can be planted again next year. Selecting seeds from fruits with favoured qualities like sweetness or resistance to environmental conditions, such as disease or drought, will result in those qualities becoming dominant over time. Saving and sharing our seeds offers a safeguard against crop failure when we can turn to our successful neighbours to help us recover from the loss. Moreover, sharing seed from our favourite plants is undeniably fun and a great way to cultivate relationships with other community members.

Seed sharing is not new. In fact, seed swapping events have become quite popular in both urban and rural areas of Manitoba, the Roseau River community included. With specific times scheduled for these events, however, not everyone who would like to attend can.

Enter the Community Seed Library.

Located in Artisan Hall at Reimer Concrete and Building Supplies in Roseau River, this seed exchange works just like our Little Free Libraries – take some seeds, share some seeds – with one difference. To make it easier to search for certain seeds, sharers are asked to clearly label their seeds, including the year they were harvested, and file them alphabetically by type, rather than variety. For example, “Scarlet runner bean, 2021” would be placed under “B”. If you are open to fielding questions about your seeds, consider including your name and/or phone number, as well.

The more people who participate in the Community Seed Library, the more fun it will be! Contributions of both unique and common varieties of food and flowers have already been deposited and we look forward to seeing our local seed bank grow.