Another Seed Exchange Resource

Vegetables by the Window

I have known for quite some time that community gardens exist here in the Twin Cities.  We have a very nice community garden in our own neighborhood and I always enjoy walking past the garden plots in the summer and looking at all of the vegetables, fruits and flowers and the sometimes fanciful garden layouts and structures in the garden plots.  Last summer, I even participated in a bike ride that went from one community garden to another in St. Paul.  There was a garden by the railroad tracks, a garden by a freeway overpass, a garden in a church yard, a garden on the grounds of the University of St. Thomas and a garden grown by children.

But I hadn't really thought about how these gardens came to be and it hadn't really occurred to me that there might be some overall coordination between community gardens in the Twin Cities.   This week, though, I have found out about an organization called Gardening Matters which is devoted to encouraging gardening and food preservation by individuals and which provides all kinds of resources - from web site space to canning instruction for community gardens, garden groups and individuals.

One exciting recent development is their Local Food Resource Hub program.  This is a networking group for gardeners to share garden resources, knowledge, tools and Seeds.   So in many ways it is like the Seed Savers Exchange I talked about in yesterday's post, except more local, not quite as glitzy and, perhaps, still a work in progress.   Last year the Hubs organized two seed and seedling distributions to their members, offered free and low cost gardening workshops and organized tool lending libraries.

The exciting thing about all this is it is, once again, an example of neighbors and community members creating a way to work together to help each other accomplish goals that are good for the earth, good for their communities and good for themselves.  The information about this year's membership and seed distributions isn't out yet, but you might want to bookmark the site for future reference:
Gardening Matters Local Food Resource Hubs