Photo by Erica Dischino Etta Johnson prepares to plant seeds from the Seed Exchange at the Willmar Public Library at her home in Willmar.
! t i w o r G
Garden seeds can be ‘borrowed’ from the library
By Carolyn Lange clange@wctrib.com
Etta Johnson is growing several different types of herbs this year to add some flavorful spice to her meals. It’s part of her strategy for cutting back on salt, said Etta, who was inspired to grow something new this spring while on one of her many trips to the Pioneerland Public Library in Willmar. She’s an avid reader, belongs to a book club and admits she sometimes wanders around the library to “see what’s going on.” That’s when she noticed the sign promoting the “seed library” amongst the shelves of books and rows of computers at the Willmar library. Inside a file cabinet drawer there were packets of seeds she could 14
Live it! | Summer 2020
“borrow” and grow with the promise she’d harvest and return seeds at the end of the season for others to use next year. It’s part of a program that started in 2017 at the library, designed to encourage people to garden, said Syrena Maranell, adult librarian at the library in Willmar, who coordinates the program. People who sign up for the program get a membership number and can take up to five packets of seeds each week. They simply record what they took in the logbook on top of the seed drawer. It’s an anonymous program that requires a membership number, not their name, be written in the log book, said Syrena. Last year about 450 packets of seeds were “lent” out from the seed library.
