SFist Cares ... About Growing Things

No kidding that SFist loves libraries. But libraries aren't just books you know, sometimes they're collections of other things. BASIL is the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library. Yes, seeds. Like, growing things seeds.

Spring is just around the corner (sorry, Gothamist, but it's pretty warm here) and that means fresh lovely new food and flowers and all that cliche stuff about new life, etc. Sadly, as more and more agriculture gets taken over by big corporations there's less diversity in what's being grown. As BASIL explains:

In the last two decades, the majority of the world's family-owned seed companies have been bought out by multinationals such as the Monsanto and Novartis corporations. These companies are not interested in creating sustainable food systems and communities. They are busy replacing carefully bred strains of vegetables and flowers with their own hybrids and patented varieties. Hybrids don't produce viable seed, and the seed from patented varieties cannot legally be collected and used. Instead, the seeds must be bought fresh each year, forcing gardeners and farmers to purchase from corporate seed sources annually.

BASIL works to combat this trend by allowing gardener members to "sign out" seeds. You grow them and then "return" the next generation of seeds from your plants. And it's free. Just like a regular library! And you can use the word "endosperm" with people who know what it means and don't just giggle like 11-year olds. Or, that could just be us.

On Friday, March 4th (we're posting late so this could be tomorrow or today), BASIL is holding its annual Seedswap at 7pm at the Ecology Center. 2530 San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley.

Could you bring us some heirloom tomatoes? Yummy!