BUDDING growers, gardeners and seed savers are invited to become a member of the town’s latest initiative – The Frome Seed Library, which opened on the first floor of the library last week.
The Seed Library – which will help encourage seed saving and sharing – has emerged as a collaboration between the Green & Healthy Frome Partnership led by Edventure, The Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty Programme, and locally based community food growing initiative Frome Field 2 Fork.
Thanks to green-fingered volunteers Kerry Meech and Cherry Truluck, an idea inspired by the Perthshire Seed Library in Scotland is now another reason to visit Frome’s fantastic library, and to get your hands into the soil.
Volunteer coordinator and trained horticulturist Kerry Meech will be at the Seed Library every Wednesday from 10am – 12noon to speak to those interested in joining or finding out more. She said, “This is a really exciting addition to Frome, a town full of allotmenteers, community food growing initiatives and budding new gardeners. It’s a chance to bring about a thriving exchange network to help encourage seed saving and sharing, and with time, to help celebrate and sow more locally produced and adapted seed.”
Co-founder of Frome Field 2 Fork, Caroline Wajsblum coordinates Frome’s much-loved annual Seed & Potato Day each February, and has been thrilled to see a more visible space for seed in the town centre all year round. Caroline said, “The annual Seed Swap is such a vibrant day in the calendar, lifting everyone’s spirits with the promise of the growing season ahead, just as the first shoots and buds break through from the winters’ soil. What’s great about the Seed Library is that it provides a place for seed to be shared and discussed all year round. There’s great demand for this and it feels right that it’s found its home within a much-loved community space like the town library.”
Rowan Phillimore from The Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty Programme, which is working across the UK and Ireland to support a more diverse and resilient seed system, added, “Saving and sharing seed is a key part of our response to the climate crisis, and one that we can all get behind in our gardens and community growing spaces. Diverse and locally adapted seed means resilience. It is also a powerful act of resistance to the corporate control of our natural biodiversity.”
Sue Palmer from the Green and Healthy Frome Partnership said, “We’re always looking for opportunities to support ventures in the town that connect health and climate, and growing food locally does just that. We are really grateful to Liz Stone and all the staff at Frome Library who have been so enthusiastic and supportive of the idea – it’s the first Seed Library in Somerset and possibly the South West! The library is one of the oldest community-centred institutions we have, and it’s great to work with them and all the partners and volunteers – to go from idea to start-up in just a few months is amazing.”
The Seed Library is situated on the first floor of the Frome Town Library. Most seeds can be accessed any time but heirloom and heritage varieties will be available on Wednesdays, between 10am and 12noon.
