Green-fingered villagers in rural Stirlingshire are able to access seeds for free as part of an effort to encourage food growing at home.
Balfron’s Emma Calvert has brought the ‘seed libraries’ to a quartet of rural villages in the region, allowing residents to pick up free seeds for growing at spots including libraries and community halls.
The seeds can then be used to develop their own produce at home, as well as helping to grow wildflowers - with the idea of creating a ‘seed bank’ made up of seeds that are adjusted to growing in the conditions here.
The ‘seed libraries’ are already up and running in four villages - Balfron, Strathblane, Drymen and Killearn and a strong community response has already been received, with the donations of locals being matched by the efforts of Balfron and Strathblane Primaries from their school gardens.
Emma believes the inspiration for the idea came after the resurgence of food growing at home during Covid and says the ‘seed libraries’ delivered a range of possible benefits.
She said: “There was a real resurgence of people trying to grow food during Covid and I read about the idea in a book and thought it was a good one.
“The seeds in the libraries will have been grown locally and proved to survive in these areas, rather than being shipped in from North Africa or other parts of the world.
“We put out a request to the various communities for seed donations to stock it and loads of people got involved, either with seeds they had bought from garden centres or some they had left over.
“It encourages people to grow food because they can go along and try their hand at it by going along to their local library or village hall; it costs them nothing to do it.”
Alongside the libraries themselves, Emma has launched a Facebook group to help growers communicate and share advice, with some of those living in the villages growing for five decades.
Emma added: “It does help to bring the communities together and feel as if we are participating in something because there wasn’t a group for this postcode for people growing food in gardens to communicate.
“It’s about being able to access the experience of other people; if they are used to growing here, then they know what goes well.
“We’ve been inundated with donations and had 330 seed packets at launch and there is a bigger picture here that we hope can catch on in other areas because it is a great resource.”
