Please join us in our mission to cultivate a more sustainable and connected community. By sharing a diverse variety of organic, regionally-grown seeds, we hope to strengthen access to healthy food, foster environmental stewardship, and support a greener lifestyle for all of our campus community!
Experiential Learning | Empowerment | Community | Food Access | Healthy Lifestyles | Inspiration | Sustainability
The Seed Library is located in the front of the main lobby of duPont Library. You may access it any time the library is open.
How it Works
Anyone is welcome to take seed packets to begin growing their own gardens. Pick any seeds you would like and take them home. We ask that you only take what you'll use so that we will have enough seeds for everyone. Each seed packet contains enough seeds to grow 4-10 plants depending on the plant.
Later in the season, you can return some seeds from your plants to help grow the collection!
What's the difference between the type and variety of a vegetable?
Type: kale, bean, beet
Variety: Red Russian (kale), Dragon Tongue (bean), and Early Wonder (beet)
Glossary of Common Terms
Chaff: the husks of corn or other seeds separated by winnowing or threshing.
Cover Crop: a crop grown to "cover" the soil and prevent erosion. These crops are grown after the primary crop is harvested. Fast-growing annuals are ideal choices.
Cross-pollination: when pollen is exchanged between flowers from the same or different plants.
Days to Maturity: the number of days between planting and first harvest.
Heirloom: varieties whose seed lines have been maintained and passed down by gardeners and farmers over generations, prized for traits such as appearance, fragrance, and flavor.
Hybrid: varieties resulting from natural or artificial pollination between genetically distinct parents. Commercially produced plants are often hybrids bred for specific characteristics.
Open Pollinated (OP): open-pollination varieties are stable varieties resulting from pollination between the same or genetically similar parents. Not hybrids.
Self-pollination: when pollination takes place within a single flower. Self-pollinating plants do not require other flowers or plants to pollinate it. Isolation or separation of self-pollinating plants within the garden is not necessary.
Threshing: process of loosening the edible part of a cereal grain, or other crop, from the surrounding chaff. This step takes place between harvesting and winnowing.
Umbels: a flower cluster in which stalks of nearly equal length spring from a common center and form a flat or curved surface, characteristic of the parsley family.
Wind-pollination: when pollen is carried from one flower to another by the wind.
Winnowing: blowing a current of air through (grain) in order to remove the chaff. This step takes place after threshing.
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