Keyport Garden Club Seed Library

The Keyport Garden Club Seed Library is located at the Keyport Public Library.  We encourage residents to take seeds and at the end of the growing season harvest seeds from your garden and bring them back to the seed library so others may enjoy them. 

The Club also provides seeds for vegetables and flowers that thrive in our wonderful Bayshore town!

Here is the latest inventory for the seed library.  While it is late to do some planting, there is almost nothing for which it is too late, especially with climate change, when first frosts are getting later.  Even okra can be grown now: it's worth growing if only for the beautiful hibiscus-like flowers, and if the weather stays warm enough for some pods, bear in mind that they're best when quite small. Check days to maturity or bloom of annuals to decide what is worth your while.  Perennials other than tender perennials are, by definition, frost hardy, so can be planted much later than it would pay to plant an annual.  Some require vernalization, so would best be planted in the fall at any rate.  Now is not a good time to plant cool season crops, but August and September will be here before you know it.

As you are aware, the seed library is free to anyone who needs seeds.  That said, we have experienced wholesale cleaning out of the seed library twice within the last year.  Please feel free to take whatever you need, but only what you do need.  You can always come back for more if what you took turns out to be insufficient.  I'll try to keep it stocked for the rest of the season, but if something that you want runs out, let me know and I'll see if I can supplement it quickly.  

Inasmuch as the library is climate controlled, there is no reason for the seed library to be emptied at the end of this year's growing season.  Different seeds have different latencies, which can vary from cultivar to cultivar even within the same species. There have been instances when seeds from archeological sites centuries old have been brought into germination, and, I assure you, none of the seeds in the current seed library have that kind of pedigree. Leaving the seeds in the library over the winter can allow you to experiment with winter sowing, indoor greenhouse arrangements and other contraptions that no one else has even thought of.  So, use it with consideration for others and in furtherance of great gardening. 

And when that gardening is done, don't forget to save the seeds for next season's seed library.

Sue Kleinberg