ERIN – If you’re looking for inspiration in the garden, take a page from Jen Edwards’ notebook.
By day Edwards operates a home day-care centre and she’s also a trustee with the Upper Grand District School Board.
She sits on the Town of Erin’s environmental sustainability advisory committee, and is the editor of the Erin Ontario News – another volunteer position.
And by combining her love of children and her dedication for community service with her passion for gardening and the environment, Edwards is a force to be reckoned with in Erin.
Edwards operates the Erin Seed Library, a place where people can take seeds, plant them, harvest their crop, and return seeds to the library at the end of the season.
Right now, Edwards is pounding away at her keyboard and assembling more than 1,000 seed packets for folks who have ordered seeds through the seed library’s virtual event.
“I was at the Port Credit library and saw that they had a seed library,” Edwards said in an interview. “I had never heard of that before and thought it was the most amazing idea.
“So, I started gathering seeds and started the Erin Seed Library that year.”
That was five years ago, and ‘circulation’ has only grown – especially during COVID as there has been a surge in interest in gardening.
“Last year there was a huge boom in COVID gardens and there’s been a great response this year as well,” she said. “I’m only now getting caught up with the orders.”
Normally the seed library lives in the Hillsburgh public library. Three years ago, she set up a seed library in Shelburne’s public library and at Wastewise in Georgetown as well.
She’d also set up a booth at Seedy Saturday events in Erin and Shelburne to promote the seed library.
Edwards also has her hand in the teaching garden at Erin Public School. Students usually do the planting and harvesting in the spring and fall, but over the summer, there’s a team of volunteers who weeds and waters. And once the crop is harvested, Edwards collects the seeds for the following year.
Three Sisters garden
She’ll be planting a Three Sisters garden again this year with blue corn from Six Nations, white acorn squash and succotash beans.
Edwards often gives seeds from the seed library to schools throughout the board for their teaching gardens, but with schools closed, these projects have gone by the wayside for the second year.
Except for elementary students enrolled in the board’s remote school. The board has requested seeds from Edwards, and seed packets will be distributed to those students to plant in their own backyard gardens.
“It’s another way for experiential learning,” Edwards said. “Children learn by doing things, and growing a garden teaches so much.”
Edwards said she learned about gardening in her mother’s garden and never lost the passion.
“I think I enjoy the sustainability of it most of all,” she said.
For kids, “the coolest thing to grow is broccoli,” she said, as they grow quickly, they get big, and a head of broccoli can feed a lot of people.
For herself, she’s planting purple varieties of her old favourites – purple peas, purple cauliflower, purple carrots – “purple anything is good for me,” she said with a laugh.
Edwards is not in it for financial gain or for notoriety.
“I just want to help people,” she said.
“I’m not rich. I know how hard it is to buy something. So c.”
If you’re growing vegetables or flowers this year, consider saving some seeds for yourself and for your local seed library.
Here are some seed-collecting tips from Edwards:
– to harvest seeds like melon, peppers, and pumpkins, scoop the seeds out, wash them and dry well:
– tomato seeds store better if you can ferment the goo off them in a glass of water before you spread them out to dry;
– many flowers produce seed pods, or have the seeds right under the spent flowers. Once you start looking for seeds, you will find them everywhere; and
– store seeds in a cool, dry, dark space.
For information about the seed library, visit erinseedlendinglibrary.weebly.com.
The Advertiser is profiling some of the Great Gardeners of Wellington County. If you know someone who has made a valuable contribution to gardening in your community, let us know. Please email information to jshuttleworth@wellingtonadvertiser.com.
