The C.M. Shields Centennial Library is gearing up for gardening season with the Seed Library, a seed exchange program that helps you grow your garden while adding to the seeds exchanged. You borrow seeds from the library, grow your plants and keep one plant for seeding. Then, at the end of the season, resupply the library’s seed stock with what you’ve grown!

It’s a free program that started on April 1st. Anyone can register, and they have seeds for indoor and outdoor plants, herbs, flowers and vegetables. If you’re a new gardener, that’s OK too. This library is for all gardeners, experienced and inexperienced. When you register, you can pick up an information packet about the reseeding process.

Louise Gaudette, head of C.M. Shields Library, says new gardeners are welcome, and there’s no pressure to return your seeds. “Every season is different,” she says. “Even if you don’t return what you’ve checked out, that’s OK. We’re OK with…some people came in only to donate; they haven’t checked out any seeds. Because they’ve collected their own seeds, and that’s all they wanted to replant.”

And if you’re not sure what you want to grow, the Seed Library has lots of options. “We have herbs, we have vegetables, and we also have flowers,” says Louise. “So there was a lot donated last year.”

If you don’t have a garden or backyard to do your gardening (or this Winter never ends), the Seed Library has you covered there too. “Some people have already started growing their plants indoors. There’s also some that can only be planted outdoors, you don’t have to start them indoors. So, until June, the Seed Library is open and ready to go.”

Louise also spoke of the incredible resources that the library has to offer; a resource some may have forgotten about in the Digital Age. “The library has so many resources,” she says. “People with Pinterest and the Internet have forgotten that the library is your, should be, your first place to go for information on any subject”

When it comes to gardening, the C.M. Shields Centennial Library in South Porcupine has plenty. “Here, there’s a very good collection of gardening books. Timmins has them as well. […] A lot of them, really good resources.”

The project is helping encourage a sense of community when it comes to gardening in a winter-heavy city like Timmins. “It’s free!” says Louise. “It’s sharing, it’s fun. It’s for the young, it’s for the more experienced, it’s for the beginner. Just another way for the community and the library to give back to its community.”

If you want to learn more about the program and about gardening, then check out Gardening Footprints with the Cochrane District Master Gardeners. Gardening footprints takes place Wednesday, April 18th at 630 at the C.M. Shields Library.

The Seed Library is free and is now available for anyone to register.