Fiona's Peas

Pocket Seed Library member Fiona (age 4) sent us these photos of her fantastic peas.

Happy Plants

Pocket Seed Library member Molli (of chocolate chip-banana bread fame)
sends photos of her gardening successes: PSL pea seeds growing in a
new planter box and her latest obsession -- a blue oyster mushroom kit!

My Yacon Had Babies

Yacon, also called "Bolivian Sunroot" or "Earth Apple" is a wondrous tuber that tastes like a delicate jicama - refreshing! It grows well in California, including in the foggy outer Richmond district of San Francisco. After a harvest, the bulbs left in the ground can easily be separated and given to friends to start new plants.

My friend Noah Miller, who lives in the East Bay, just sent word about the progress of the Yacon bulb I gave him:
I decided to go digging for yacon today. Here it is, my first crunchy sweet little tuber, nestled among peas & other friends!

Pocket Seed Library may have a yacon celebration in Spring - if you have yacon stories or want to attend, let us know!


Harvest photo by Noah Miller. Yacon resembles a sweet-potato and is shown in the upper left side of the photo. More pictures of yacon are here: Life Cycle of a Yacon Plant

Report from the Frankenart Mart

Our evening at the Frankenart Mart was fantastic.

Some veteran PSL members came by (Yay for Vanessa, Lily, Megan, Michele, Kat & Redwood!) and lots of new people joined. Han and Elocin brought great seeds to share and Leslie, Zeke, and Reuben were perfect hosts.

We used the evening to make seed packets, organize our collection and . . . . reveal our newest gardening tool: a vegetable planting calendar.

It's still in prototype form and specifically for the Outer Richmond. We're refining it and can't wait to share it (and make calendars for other Bay Area micro-climates).

The planting calendar and the Tall Telephone Pea seed packet are both part of the PSL Tool Collection. Stay tuned for more information about this aspect of the library--it's crucial.


Photo by Leslie Henslee

My Parents Are Picnickers

LissaIvy photographs my parents and me in
Southern Exposure's bamboo forest.

Dream Job at the Frankenart Mart, November 21, 6-9pm

Frankenart Mart is one of our top favorite places.

It's an art-play-gallery-store invented and run by Leslie Henslee. The Mart has quarterly themes for the exhibits and all the art is created by the public. Everyone is invited to go to the Mart, make some art, buy some art, sell some art (50/50 split with the Mart), buy a t-shirt, hang-out, or have a free hot dog (on monthly Free Hot Dog Days). The Frankenart Mart is, as Leslie says, "A playground that earnestly celebrates creation." It is a super fun place.

The Mart's current theme is "Dream Job."

Our dream job is to be the PSL Librarians.

So, on Friday November 21 from 6-9pm we'll be the PSL Librarians at the Frankenart Mart. We'll be making seed envelopes, trading seeds, and designing the seed cataloging system. It's going to be really fun. Join us!

Pea Art

Pocket Seed Library distributed pea seeds and coloring paraphernalia to new
library members gathered together in Southern Exposure's backyard garden.

Thanks to Kat Kroll for helping come up with the craft of the day!
Photos by Courtney Fink

Gals in Gingham

Photo by Redwood Kroll

Photographer Lily & PSL Librarian Erin Wilson

Picnic Photos, Round 2

Southern Exposure graciously hosted Pocket Seed Library's first-ever

picnic,
planting party,
& seed swap

We all had so much fun! Here are photos by gingham-adorned photographer Lily (Vistalux)


Molly & Choco-Chip Banana Bread;
Fiona & Watermelon

Tree (from the Free Farm Stand) & permaculturist Kevin Bayuk


Cari Campbell with Mt. Diablo Deviled Eggs; Michelle & Paul; Gabe & his homemade mini-pizza

Picnic Photos, round 1

Seeds, potato salad, more seeds,
the Librarians, Farmer Kroll &
The Chief Collections Officer.











Photos by LissaIvy Tiegel

PSL Seed Collection Tour!

Pocket Seed Library: Seed CollectionSeeds contributed at the first Pocket Seed Library picnic and potluck

We look forward to bringing seeds to an event near you. Let us know of fun events! (We're catching up on library-school homework, so we may be hibernating & focusing on the blog for the next few weeks....)

What we ate at the picnic

It was an amazing feast . . .
*Cheesey tomato rosemary gallette
*Sesame noodle salad with wheat noodles, red pepper, mushrooms & celery
*Apple fritters
*Maysoun & Tara's coleslaw
*Ivy's garden of wonder pasta salad with: translucent pink onions, Winter's kale, Paul's herbs, feta, roasted squash, toasted hazelnuts
*Chard frittata
*Locally grown onions
*Green Grape pie (vegan, in the shape of a teddy bear. See photo above!)
*Pickled eggs: Jamie's grandma Gegenhuber's recipe
*Arugula, fuji apple & cucumber salad with parmesan & lemon vinaigrette
*Wild Wild Rice
*Watermelon & watermelon aqua fresca
*Mt. Diablo deviled eggs
*Apple pie
*Onion & Chevre Quiche
*Deviled eggs with mayo, chives, curry powder & cucumber
*Mt. Diablo Deviled Eggs
*Aunt Lott's Wine Drops
*Kroll Family Farm Ocean Beach Salad: arugula selvetica, astro arugula, frisee, radiccio, escarole, red sails lettuce, black-seeded simpson lettuce, deer tongue lettuce, watercress, wrinkled crinkled curly cress, giant goosefoot, alaska & buttercup nasturiums, blue & white borage flowers, violas, calendula flowers, peacock mustard (green & purple), giant noble spinach, mizuma, mizpcona, tatsoi, and black bachelor buttons





Green Grape Pie photo by LissaIvy Tiegel
Aunt Lott's Wine Drops photo by Lily (Vistalux)

Thanks To All Picknickers!

Thanks everyone for coming to the picnic and bringing fantastic food and seeds. We are so excited about meeting you all, hearing more about your inspiring projects, and traveling through the community together. Please let us know about upcoming events, and about how your peas grow! Send photos! Send plant lore! Let's keep growing!

Story of a Seed:

Portrait of a Seed Saver: Brooke

Mission District resident Brooke Budner is an urban homesteader.
Over a year ago, she looked out her window, saw an overgrown backyard, and asked her neighbor if she could start a garden there.

She recently showed me her cover crops, stinging nettle patch, and the logs she injected with mushroom spores. So cool! I interviewed Brooke last Spring and asked about alternative economies: "This year I’m bartering ginger beer for assistance with doing my taxes. I have a friend who knows how to do it. I’ll trade vegetables for help on my bike. I’ll trade salad greens for bread or coffee, or fruit from the farmer’s market where I work for some bodywork, if I need it. I’m really always looking for connections that can be made because we all do such different things in the city, and we all need everything."

I hope that people make new friends at the picnic, and that it inspires people to share seeds, skills, and sweetness.

Salad Ingredients: Edible Flowers

Borage is blooming for you.

Portrait of a Seed Saver: Lily

This Salad

...has your name on it.



Calendula is blooming for you.

I've labeled the greens and edible flowers on the farm with the names of people who are coming to the Pocket Seed Library picnic. There's still plenty more baby lettuce for friendly people who love to picnic. Join us on Saturday, October 18 from 12-4pm at Southern Exposure Gallery, 417 14th Street in San Francisco. Please RSVP so we can look forward to meeting you!

Straw Bales for the Picnic!

I went to Golden Gate Fields race track to get straw bales this morning. Bales are available in the 'corporation yard' from 8am-2pm and cost $7. To get there you drive past the parking lot, along the frontage road, across another parking lot, through an open gate and then you're suddenly amidst towers of straw.

This morning two men where moving the bales with forklifts. After helping me load a bale into my car, one of the men said, "I hope I don't seem unfriendly. I lost my cell phone in the straw and am anxious to find it."

Travelers from my grandmother's garden

These are all flowers my grandmother has grown from seed. The rubeckia and bee balm reseed every year and line her back porch all summer. The monk's hood is the treasure: the original was grown by my great-grandmother. My mother has a vine of it too--and my grandmother is collecting the seeds for me too. So, assuming I can make it grow, the vine will have traveled through four generation and 2,739 miles from Waneta Lake to Caton, NY to Ann Arbor, MI to Oakland, CA.

My grandmother sent me home with seeds from her rubeckia and I'll be sharing some at the picnic.

h o l l y h o c k

The hollyhock growing in my front yard is the child
of my friend Lily's hollyhock.

Picnic Map

The picnic is in the magical backyard garden at Southern Exposure Gallery in the SF Mission District. Southern Exposure (SoEx) is three blocks from the 16th St. BART station. Street parking can take a bit, so bike or BART if you can!

Birdhouse Gourds

I have two birdhouse gourd vines growing along my garden fence. I got the seeds at the last February's Bay Area Seed Interchange Library's (BASIL) annual hoedown and seed exchange--(an evening field trip with Zoey and Lily).

It was a perfect seed-exchange moment. As I picked them up, the woman who collected them was standing next to me and said, "I live in Oakland and I've tried to grow a lot of birdhouse gourds--these are the only ones that have worked. The gourds are beautiful. To dry them you'll need to put them in a dark warm place--I have them over my stove--and let them completely dry out. It will take all winter and they'll get nasty looking as the outer skin pulls off. Then in the spring they'll be ready!"

These instructions aren't as complete as what I've found since then--but it was an astonishing moment--these seeds are from an Oakland garden! Collected by the woman who is talking to me! She is telling me how to dry them! She is a helping me.

The vines are important (even symbolic) for other reasons:
-They are among the first plants I've successfully grown from seed
-They are growing along the fence at my garden which makes me think of them as for me and the larger neighborhood
-The BASIL seed exchange is the first time I really thought about collecting my own seeds
-They are beautiful

A Garden Picnic: How Seeds Travel

A Garden Picnic: How Seeds Travel
Saturday, October 18, 12-4pm
at Southern Exposure Gallery
417 14th Street (@ Valencia), San Francisco, CA 94103
RSVP: (415) 863-2141.
email: soex@soex.org. web: www.soex.org

Calling all gardeners, citizen scientists, and picnickers! Enjoy city-grown food and participate in a group planting party. Picnickers will get two mystery seed packets—one to plant right away and one to experiment with later. Information designers and picnic organizers, Zoey Kroll and Erin Wilson, will gather the results of these neighborhood garden experiments to create a cataloging system for the Pocket Seed Library.

Seeds and salad provided. Bring a dish to share and RSVP so we know how much lettuce to grow!

About the Pocket Seed Library

The Pocket Seed Library (PSL) contains seeds collected by local gardeners and documentation of the seed’s history. The PSL is a blog, a seed swap, a plant cataloging system and an experiment in your kitchen or backyard.

The PSL blog will be unfolding on October 18th, as we practice the art of picnicking and planting--with you! Come picnic with us at Southern Exposure's gallery garden.