By Eleanor Wilson
Casey Cardinia Libraries is bringing a fresh meaning to the traditional understanding of a library, launching a seed library for community members interested in growing their own fruits and vegetables.
From this month, edible plant and flower seeds will be available from Hampton Park and Pakenham libraries for community members to take home and grow in their own homes.
The library is encouraging members to borrow up to three packets of seeds, with the Autumn selection including carrot, parsley, cabbage, silverbeet, cauliflower and rocket seeds.
Each season there will be a rotation of six new seeds to choose from.
Customer service librarian Moira Eveleens from the Pakenham library said she hopes the seed library can grow to become self-sustaining.
“It’s a long term project and we hope that by we can encourage the community to also donate seeds so that once that happens the seed library grows and it becomes self-sustaining,” she said.
The seed library is part of Casey Cardinia Libraries HEAL program, which provides a range of resources to promote healthy, easy, accessible and local food options for the community.
“The HEAL program aims to help people learn about healthy eating and how to grow and harvest edible plants, and we support that learning through our programs for all ages,” she said.
“We have programs for kids and adults and they can range from workshops on how to grow and harvest food, to cooking demonstrations.”
Ms Eveleens said the program has been in development since the beginning of the pandemic, with library staff hoping the seed library helps promote sustainability for the wider community.
“By people learning how to grow their own food, they have an awareness of their environment, and we do our research to help give that food literacy to people about what grows well in the area, what is in season and so on,” she said.
“There’s a whole lot of education at the library to promote green living.”
To sign up to the Seed Library, head to cclc.vic.gov.au/heal-seed-library-form/
