Fiction, biography, or daisies?
Norris library makes vegetable, flower seeds available for ‘checkout’
Nina Klein, library assistant at the Betty Anne Jolly Norris Community Li- brary, stands with the former card catalog cabinet that has now become the center of the Norris Seed Library, where patrons can “check out” vegetable and flower seeds to grow at home. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
The idea was brought to the Betty Anne Jolly Norris Community Library by library assistant Nina Klein, who says she had heard about it from libraries in some other communities.
“We just started it March 1,” said Klein, a Knoxville native who has worked in the Norris library for the past two years.
“We’re using our old card catalog cabinet to hold the seeds,” she said. “Since all of our book catalogs are now digitized, we had been looking for something else to use the card catalog cabinet for.”
Anyone wanting to plant vegetables or flowers, or both, can now receive up to 12 packs of seeds per year, she said. But unlike the library’s books, the seeds “don’t have to be returned,” Klein said.
“You don’t even need a library card,” she said. “Just pick out the seed packets you want and take them to the circulation desk.”
There are about 50 varieties of seeds available, include tomato, cucumber, eggplant, various beans, peppers, radishes, turnips, peas, pumpkins, squash, melons, okra, carrots, lettuce and other greens, corn, gourds, mint, dill, basil, parsley, oregano, sunflowers, native coneflowers, milkweed and more.
She said she expects tomatoes and sunflowers to be the most-popular seeds people will want to check out. “We have a lot of those, and they’re easy to grow,” she said of the two species.
“We got a couple of companies to donate seeds,” Klein said. “We’re still working to get everything out.”
They include Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. in Missouri, and Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center in Gatesville, N.C.
The North Carolina seed operation’s website (heirlooms.org) says it “continues to collect and grow our heirloom seeds from the Southern Appalachian region … in Kentucky, Tennessee and N.C.”
Participants are urged to contribute some seeds back to the library from their own gardens by letting their plants go to seed at the end of the growing season.
“We do have a lot of gardening books, including some we’ve recently added,” Klein said. “And we have a brochure we give everybody on how to save seeds to donate back.
“We also plan to have seed- and garden-related programs for all ages.”
Klein said the library also has been working with the Norris Community Garden “about a possible seed swap in the future.”
A list of available varieties and comprehensive information about the program can be found on the library’s website at norriscommunitylibrary.com/norris-seed-library.
Seeds may be checked out whenever the library, at One Norris Square, is open, Klein said. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.