Seed Library Updates
Spring is definitely in the air! We’ve distributed almost all of our first seed bundles, which contain seeds that need to be started indoors. There are still a few seed bundles left at some of the library branches – please give them a call if you are interested in picking one up.
We plan to release our second seed bundle on Saturday, May 1. This will be our most bountiful seed release yet! We have prepared 410 seed bundles, each one containing 20+ packets of seeds that you can directly plant in your garden, including: beans, beets, carrots, cucumbers, leafy greens, lettuce, herbs, peas, radishes, and summer and winter squash. Stay tuned for the official release announcement in our May newsletter. As with the first seed bundle, current members will have the first choice to select a bundle, then we will offer the bundles to the general public on May 8.
This month we also donated over 500 packets of seeds to area food pantries, helping to increase the availability of free seeds to members of our community. You’ll find our seed donations at Lakeshore CAP, Feed My People, and Klaud’s Pantry.
~Upcoming events~
- April 25, 1-3pm: Big Creek Watershed Day at Crossroads at Big Creek. We'll be giving away free pollinator seed packets at this Earth Day event!
- May 1: Scheduled release date for pre-packaged seed bundle #2, which will contain seeds for directly planting in your garden.
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Portable seed library box for Klaud's Pantry in Ellison Bay
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~~ Volunteer Opportunities ~~
Want to get involved? We currently have several volunteer opportunities:
Plant of the month column
Select a plant variety and write an article for our monthly newsletter.
Recipe of the month column
Select a vegetable-based recipe of the month for our newsletter, including a short introduction about the recipe. (This can be a recipe from a website or blog as long as we give credit to the source.)
Instagram coordinator
We are starting an Instagram page! Instagram is a social media platform for sharing pictures/videos and we are looking for someone to coordinate content for publication. This isn’t as labor-intensive as managing a Facebook page or group – we are aiming to make about one post per month about seed library updates and/or pictures of what's growing in our members' gardens.
Garden status update coordinator
Several seed library members have agreed to give status updates/pictures of their gardens through the growing season, which would be excellent content to share on our Facebook page. We are looking for a volunteer to reach out to these members on a regular basis to prompt them to submit a short note and a picture (or two) showing what's happening in their garden.
Please send an email to info@DoorCountySeedLibrary.org if you are interested in finding out more about these volunteer opportunities. |
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April Garden Calendar: A Staggered Start
April can be a surprisingly busy time of year for Wisconsin gardeners. Although there may still be a bit of snow on the ground, it’s time to start sowing seeds for the coming season. Many seeds -- like tomatoes, peppers, and some herbs -- will need to be started 4-8 weeks before Memorial Day weekend. Start peppers indoors by late March and tomatoes indoors by late April for best results. Make sure your seedlings have enough room in their pots or pot them up as necessary -- you don’t want to stunt their growth by starting them early and then not giving them enough space to keep maturing until you transplant them. Keep referring to the garden timeline you made last month to keep on track!
If you’re feeling brave, if the ground is soft enough, or if you have some protection like a cold frame, consider planting cool season crops at the end of the month. Crops like beets, broccoli, carrots, chard, kohlrabi, leaf lettuce, mustard greens, onions, parsnips, peas, potatoes, radishes, spinach, and turnips can withstand chilly conditions fairly well.
Make sure to keep your seedlings well hydrated so that they can germinate and start to grow properly!
For more specific planting guidance, check out our Door County Planting Calendars, which are sorted by seed starting date. Or use this calendar if you prefer one that is sorted alphabetically by crop type,
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Community Connections: Bayhaven Farms, LLC
By Renee McAllister
Bayhaven Farms, located in Egg Harbor, was started by Carl Prusinski, who planted the first apple trees in 1996. The farm has continued to expand over the years and in 2020, his daughter, Deb Moore, and her husband Bill left their jobs and moved to Bayhaven Farms to work on the farm full-time. They offer mushrooms, apples, and hemp products year-round. Deb and Bill believe local produce is really important because it provides community and quality food with a reduced carbon footprint. They also note that produce that grows well in our climate makes the tastiest food!
Bayhaven has over 300 Honeycrisp and Cortland apple trees. More grafting and seedlings of heirloom varieties are planned on an additional lot this year. Mushrooms -- like Shiitake, Oyster, and Lion’s Mane -- are available to both restaurants and local residents. Even during the winter, Bayhaven can provide mushrooms for culinary use. Bayhaven also sells CBD and hemp products, which offer a natural form of pain relief. They grow the hemp locally and process it into CBD oil during the winter season. Hemp helps increase soil quality by reducing erosion and creating CO2.
The busy season starts in March and runs until October for Bill and Deb, yet they still find time to have a vegetable and herb garden as well as collaborate with local groups such as the Door County Seed Library, Seed to Kitchen thru UW-Madison, and Seedlinked. With Seed to Kitchen, Bayhaven is participating in a potato seed variety trial. For Seedlinked, which is an organization that works to create more efficient and resilient seed systems, Bill and Deb are working on growing, evaluating, and saving sunflower seed varieties.
Bayhaven’s goal is regenerative agriculture to increase soil quality. Regenerative agriculture incorporates biomass and microorganisms into the soil. Keep up the great work, Bayhaven Farms, LLC!
For more information about Bayhaven Farms, check out their website.
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Plant of the Month: Beaver Dam Pepper, Capsicum annuum
By Brenda J. Wolfe
Hungarian immigrant Joe Hussli brought pepper seeds to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin in 1912. He simply could not leave his ancestral home without them. Although passed down through generations, these heirloom seeds were nearly lost to us. New hybrids came on the market that were easier to grow and more available.
The Beaver Dam pepper has a mild heat and slightly sweet and tangy flavor, similar to a sweet paprika. It is considered “labor intensive,” because the peppers are heavy, can grow up to 9 inches long, and staking is required. Since peppers can get sunscald from too much sun, you should not prune their foliage. Plant them outdoors when the nighttime air temperatures stay in the high 50s. You will notice little growth for 2-3 weeks while they develop a generous root system. Then they will grow big and bushy.
This capsicum ripens from lime-green to red, but you can eat them at any stage. Always use shears to cut off the peppers. The limbs will break if you try to twist them off. These peppers are so delicious and versatile that they are a favorite of many chefs in Chicago restaurants.
Imagine a pepper so palatable that it is not only named after an entire city, but has its own annual Beaver Dam Pepper Festival held every September in Wisconsin. If you go there, the local sheriff may join you in an apple pepper pie-eating contest!
~~Seed-saving notes: All peppers are self-pollinating. However cross-pollination of the Capsicum annuum species will also definitely happen. Different varieties should be planted about 500 feet apart if you wish to save some seeds.
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Beaver Dam Pepper (picture source: Nature and Nurture Seeds)
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Book Review: Mini Farming - Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre by Brett L. Markham
By Renee Borkovetz
Mini farming, as detailed in this book, is the practice of intensive agriculture in which you use every square inch of your garden to your advantage. You don’t need acres of land or to live rurally to have a self-sufficient garden to grow and preserve your own food. This gardening practice is dependent on how you plan, plant, maintain, and harvest your crops and it’s easier than you might think.
Another theme in this book is the economics of mini farming. Vegetable gardening doesn’t have to solely be a hobby but can be a real investment that saves you money, provides you and your family with a healthy food source, and could generate additional income as well if you are able to harvest excess produce that you can sell. Saving seeds for next year’s garden is just one of the many ways to cut down on cost.
This book dives into the practices, techniques, and do’s and don’ts of mini-farming, so that anyone can be successful. Whether you’re a beginner gardener or have decades of experience, this book is a must read. This audiobook or e-book is available through Hoopla Digital and at the Door County Library through InfoSoup.
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Featured Grower: Rowen White
By Mikayla Kifer
Rowen White is a Seedkeeper from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and an activist for Indigenous seed sovereignty and rematriation. Rowen founded Sierra Seeds, an organic seed cooperative focusing on local seed production and education, and works with the Indigenous Seedkeepers Network
When Rowen was a young woman she worked on a farm in western Massachusetts and encountered heirloom tomatoes for the first time. The difference between the abundance and diversity of tomato varieties and the canned foods she grew up around sparked a series of questions and realizations about seeds for her. “I realized that not only did these seeds have places where they originated from—homelands that were oftentimes written in the descriptions on the seed packets or in these seed catalogs—but they also had people who they had been intimately connected with throughout time.”
She began to wonder, “what were the foods that fed my ancestors? What were the seeds that fed my ancestors?” For Rowen and many other Indigenous people, the relationship between seeds, people, and land was disrupted during forced relocation and cultural erasure. Seed rematriation attempts to restore these relationships by reuniting seed varieties with Indigenous groups who traditionally stewarded them. This process is central to Rowen’s work at Sierra Seeds and the Indigenous Seedkeepers Network.
Rowen believes, “...food is deeply healing and that when we restore our relationships with our ancestral foods, they help us recalibrate our deep internal knowing of who we are.” She seeks to bring this healing to Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike, “A big part of my work is to advocate for people to not forget about the seeds, and not forget about our relationship to them. When I go into spaces to teach or to share story, I oftentimes bring seeds and food with me, and there is a palpable sparkle in people’s eyes and a joy that people get when they gather up a handful of these beautiful seeds. I think it reminds them of what’s possible, of the beauty that’s possible in our food system, and also a food system that’s rooted in a culture of belonging.”
To learn more about Rowen and her work check out this interview with Emergence Magazine or visit Rowen’s website, blog, or Instagram page.
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Rowen White of Sierra Seeds
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Thanks for growing with us, Door County!
~~The Door County Seed Library planning team
Note: Information about products, providers, and services contained in this newsletter does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by the Door County Seed Library.
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