Ready to organize your own community seed grow-out? Let Going to Seed help you!
Local Adaptation Project Kits
https://goingtoseed.org/collections/zine-growing-guide-kits
Colorful growing guides complete with diverse seed packets, these zines are designed to help Seed Libraries and community groups to start their own local adaptation projects. Each kit contains 20 zines and 20 packets of seed.
Learn more about Community Seed Projects here.
SO cool to see these and the progress here. I’ve been pretty siloed on Farm and in my immediate region in my ongoing seed work and plant work as well as launching an initiative (slowly - the work is mighty!). However, I remain committed to collaborating in any way I can across the greater Seedscape. I am hosting an Hour talk at the Kootenai County (CDA Idaho) mid May on Saturday the 16th. It would be really cool to showcase these as a means of showing people a way we could collaborate as a broader community.
@DebbieA : It is unclear visiting the Zine/Kit page, in my perhaps inexperience, how one would actually order those kits? Am I missing something? I’d love to get some of these materials for my talk as it is Mid Day at the best time slot where people may really be walking around. I was hoping to showcase this as a bump for ‘Going to Seed’ and as a “We could do something like this. Here in our region. No seriously. Right here. Together.”
Click on the “zine” image at the link above and it will take you to an order page.
@DebbieA Just got the Muskmelon Local Adaptation Kit for Brownwood Library! So excited to be part of this project.
I have a request:
It looks like there are about 80-100 seeds in each of these packets. It’s very unlikely that any one person will be able to plant 80-100 muskmelon seeds. Some people may want to participate but only have space for 2 or so. So I see no need not to distribute some of the seeds in smaller quantities and get more people participating (and more seeds planted).
However, I only have 20 zines. Is there a way I can get a pdf so I can print and distribute to everyone who participates?
Dividing the seeds would be a lovely way to let more people participate. Because this is a diverse population, you probably still want to give more seed to each person than if it was just a single variety. Not every seed will do well in every garden, so ideally each person would plant every seed you give them to allow for non-germination, die-off and pest/disease problems. If they still have too many seedlings, some could be shared with friends and neighbors, or simply culled.
Here is the melon ebook (link is also at the bottom of the melon kit order page) although I did not see a way to download it as a PDF. I’ll get back to you about that. Thanks for your patience!
One challenge with selecting crops with very high outcrossing rates is that melons and squash take quite a bit of space per plant. We are trying muskmelons, and I included a note on the library sign that melons do well trellised to manage space.
20 zines, divide the seeds 20 ways?
The kits come with 20 packets of 80-100 seeds, each. I can confirm that the packet I used myself from the Muskmelon kit we are trying (not the OP) had 100 seeds on the dot. We had kids at elementary garden club plant them two to a cell in a 50 cell tray, and more than 90 came up (some of them 3 to 5 to a cell).
@remobec Here is a melon/watermelon crop zine that is better suited for office printers. Hope you’ll find it useful.
Short GTS - Melons.pdf (4.2 MB)
It can work but you want a fairly robust trellis just in case you end up with a good crop. I select mine for small size partly just for that even then a bunch of them can get a bit weighty.
