California One Seed One Community

One Seed One Community aims to strengthen our community by providing a shared experience in growing nutritious food and saving seeds.

California Seed Libraries and other interested groups are invited to sign up for this project and engage their community members to Save a Row for Diversity.

Dear Seed Librarians and Seed Friends,

Just to remind you that your efforts are supported by the California Legislature

According to the CA Legislature: “Noncommercial seed sharing activity contributes significant value to the health of our communities and to the resilience of our food system.”
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FAC§ionNum=52288

You may be interested to know that seed savers all over California are saving the Cherokee Trail of Tears Bean including in

San Diego
Santa Monica
Santa Maria
San Louis Obispo
Monterey
Silicon Valley
East Bay
San Francisco
Sebastopol
Mendocino

among others....(plse let me know who you are).

Joan Morris of the Mercury News wrote a fabulous article on Local Seed Libraries. https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/08/03/bay-area-seed-lending-libraries-connect-gardens-history-food/

It ended up on the front page!

Time to Harvest

What happened to my beans! They don’t seem as productive anymore, kinda look straggly....more than likely they are approaching the end stage of life. Could be time to stop watering and let your beans dry on the vine. Dry beans stay on the plant until the seeds are hard and rattle in the pods. The alternative is to cut the plants when pods turn yellow and hang the plants in a warm dry place until the pods become brittle and the seeds rattle in the pods.

Photo by Garner Hendrick

It is also wise, when your beans seeds are very dry, to put them in the freezer for three (3) days. This is to kill any potential bean weevils. Or at the first sign of bean weevils, freeze your beans.

It is very important to label your seeds. At the very least, include common name, year of harvest and zip code. More info is always better, such as scientific name, where seeds are sourced, how many plants seed was saved from? Any special precautions for cross pollination taken such as isolation distance, hand pollination, planting only one variety from each family?

Once you have labeled your seeds, they may be stored in your closet, refrigerator or freezer. Allow seeds to come to room temp before removing from storage container to reduce condensation/moisture on the seeds.

Now your seeds are ready to be shared!

Together let’s:

• Educate our community to grow a bean from seed to seed

• Grow one variety as a commitment to earth and food security

• Inspire people to fall in love with a seed

• Save our heirloom seeds and share them

How this project works?

For basic details of the One Seed One Community project: http://seedlibraries.weebly.com/one-seed-one-community-project.html

Cherokee Trail of Tears Beans can be purchased at Seed Savers Exchange https://www.seedsavers.org/cherokee-trail-of-tears-bean?custcol_sca_sizeweightqty=10

Each organization will be in charge of seed distribution and forwarding informational emails to their community

Join us to encourage our community to save one seed together. More Seed Savers equals more Diversity! Click here to join.

Together:

Hillie Salo – Silicon Valley Grows
Sara McCamant – Community Seed Exchange
Elizabeth Johnson – SLO Seed Exchange
Rebecca Newburn – Richmond Grows