Seedswap: The Gardener's Guide to Saving and Swapping Seeds

by Josie Jeffery

An illustrated introduction to saving seeds—how to harvest seeds from your own garden, set up a seed library to share with your community, and grow plants from your own seed stash. With a directory of plants and easy-to-follow instructions, this is the perfect book for first-time gardeners.

In an exciting introduction to the global seed-swapping movement, passionate seed activist Josie Jeffery explores why we should care about our plant heritage and, most importantly, explains how to do it. With an invaluable directory of all the best seeds to swap and save, Seedswap provides all the tools you need to start your very own growing revolution.

This book covers the what, who, and whys of seed swapping and seed saving. It advises where to start and how to get involved with the worldwide horticultural campaign to "save our seeds." The work of seed activist individuals and groups is highlighted with inspirational tips and tales, and there is insight into the practices of major seed companies and how this has affected seed diversity, as well as how "seed breeding" affects the future of plants. The work of seed collections and seed banks is explored, and advice is given on how to collect, clean, store, preserve, and raise seeds. The second part of the book contains an extensive plant directory, which is full of advice on how to grow plants from "seed to seed."

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Food, Sustainability

128 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2012

Reviews

[Jeffrey Pedro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeffery’s book is a solid guide to plant care and the process of collecting and saving seeds. Sources of international seed banks with their websites are scattered throughout this book. The final chapter focuses on the descriptions of 49 common plants and how to sow and harvest their seeds. Seed harvesting is an essential part of gardening as it continues fostering generations of plants and a limitless food supply. I appreciated the inclusion of a troubleshooting section as gardening can face a variety of issues.

[Cara Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and something to aspire to as a budding (see what I just did there?) gardener.

[Louisa Tomasiewicz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty great book. It was simple, relatively unbiased in the GMO/NON-GMO debate, and very eye catching. My only criticism is I would have liked a few more pictures of the actual seed saving techniques and process, however there are YouTube videos for that! haha 😃👍

[Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very complete. Plenty of seed sources.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seed Libraries:

Austin Public Library
Bay Area Seed Interchange Library
Dallas Public Library
Heritage Seed Library
Pima County Library
Richmond Grows Seed Lending Library

[William Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked the cover and the illustrations. It was very approachable and easy to understand. Lots of pictures.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet little book on seed harvesting and seed sharing.

[Meaghan Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super simple book, but gave me some great ideas that I’m excited to try ☺️

[Fernleaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very handy reference for seed saving and swapping, covering all the basics of why seed saving is important and listing many organizations involved with heritage and heirloom seed saving around the world. The book itself is beautiful, with lovely page spreads that are very nice to look at. The plant directory has some very useful features and some things that just make me wonder...One of the things that I really like about the directory is that the plant family that each vegetable or herb belongs to is included. This partly just caters to the plant geek in me, but I really enjoy knowing that information. The special requirements information is also wonderful, detailing the steps that need to be taken in order to harvest pure seeds. The organization of the directory leaves somewhat to be desired from my view, plants are separated into the groupings of 'vegetable' 'herb' 'flower' and 'salad vegetables' which seems a little odd to my brain. Further, within the groupings the plants are not organized alphabetically, leaving you to flip through pages randomly or check the index for a particular plant. Finally, although it claims to have the 'most common' species listed in the directory there are some odd omissions, like including runner beans, but not regular beans, rutabagas but not radishes...

[Caitlin]

This book is informative and fun. High quality illustrations, charts, photographs, and text boxes provide useful tips and introductory material about seedswapping, seedsaving, and growing. Perfect for someone wanting to learn more about the subject and also practical for taking first steps to start gardening and seed saving.

[Annie Oosterwyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a perfect book for a sleety, snowy day. Directions on how to save seeds, set up your own swap group or how to join others. Various seed banks around the world are introduced and a directory for growing and harvesting the seeds from individual vegetables is in the back.

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted more tips for saving seeds. The book focused too much on the swapping aspect and the history of it.

[Richie · Rating 2 out of 5]

started off nice but the whole second half of the book is just a seed catalog. Not my favorite