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Seed Library Adoptions : gifts that outlive a lifetime

Our Canadian Seed Library is a collection of seeds that backs up the work of our member seed savers and Canadian heritage seed companies. As a not-for-profit project, we store back-up samples of heirloom, locally-adapted, and member-favourite seeds to keep them viable and available for future gardeners and farmers. These are your seeds, your collection, brought to you by the work and donations of hundreds of people.

We are working to expand the library’s inventory, and get each of the 2400 stored varieties adopted so they can be preserved in perpetuity. A full adoption of variety costs $250, or you can make a partial adoption of any amount. Donations of $50 or more are permanently recognized on your adopted variety’s page of the Seed Library website, and the adoption is a tax-receiptable charitable donation.

Seed adoptions make great gifts! All gift donors receive a card acknowledging their adoption to pass along to the recipient. We’ll do our best to help you receive these before Christmas – the sooner you make your adoption, the sooner we will send the cards out!

In addition to Christmas or birthday gifts, in memoriams, and wedding donations, we’ve had some members get extra-creative with their donations.  Paul Ross of Vancouver bred the Ross Red Salad Tomato, donated seed to the library, then adopted it to ensure its protection. The Schneider Pole Bean was given to an Ontario market gardener by her landlady who had been saving it in the Waterloo region for decades. The market gardener also started saving the locally-adapted variety, donated a sample to the library, then adopted it in her landlady’s name. Member Chelsea Higgs from Battleford, Saskatchewan got a traffic fine, and the city let her pay it as a donation which she used to adopt a cauliflower. The Qualicum Beach Seedy Saturday Committee has been using annual seed library adoptions as a way of honouring seed leaders in their community.

To adopt, visit our online store and scroll down to the tab marked “Adopt A Variety into the Canadian Seed Library.”

 For 2015, we’re prioritizing the acquisition and adoption vegetables in the Brassica family. These include cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, mustards, kale, turnips, kohlrabi and Asian greens. Many of these vegetables are biennials and require large isolation distances, making the seed a bit more challenging to save than the bean, tomatoes & lettuce we have in large supply. If you’d like to contribute to this project, please choose “as needed” when selecting a variety to adopt.

A special note of thanks to all the Seedy Saturday & Sunday committees who collect and donate event proceeds. Over 20 varieties in the Seed Library have been adopted by Seedy Saturday & Sunday committees, and more are added each year!

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