Glasgow Seed Library is a collection of seeds and a community of growers.

The library stocks organic and open-pollinated vegetable, herb and flower seeds for everyone to borrow, grow and save. By learning to save and share seed locally, we can nurture unique varieties and adapt our plants to a changing Scottish climate.

Throughout the year, we run free workshops, talks and events around seed saving, community growing, food justice and earth care. Stay in touch on Instagram or drop us an email on glasgowseedlibrary@cca-glasgow.com

Our Vision

Glasgow Seed Library aims to:

• Offer people in Glasgow free access to organic, open-pollinated seeds
• Grow a library of diverse seeds adapted and resilient to the Glasgow climate
• Develop seed saving and related skills, knowledge and resources across the city
• Cultivate seed stewardship to build climate, food and community resilience
• Participate in international, local and Scotland-wide seed networks and exchanges
• Connect seed saving in Glasgow to marginalised practices, cultures and histories of earth care and land resistance, here and around the world

What is a Seed Library?

A seed library is a depository of seeds, grown and shared by a community. You can borrow seeds, grow them, and let the plants ‘go to seed’ at the end of the growing season. From those plants, you collect the seeds and return the same variety that you borrowed at the beginning of the growing season. Importantly, the library only hosts seeds that have been grown organically, without the use of pesticides or artificial fertilisers.

Our seed collection changes weekly, and you will find a wide variety of vegetables, edible and wild flowers, green manures, and herbs with medicinal, culinary and spiritual uses. We aim to stock the seeds of crops that thrive in our west coast climate, heritage varieties bred especially for Scotland, and culturally significant plants that have landed in Glasgow over centuries of migration and mingling.

Anyone is welcome to come to the library, browse and borrow seeds to grow. It is not a requirement to deposit seeds, but the more seeds we can save, the more sustainable the library will be. As seed is a living thing, it must be renewed each year or unique varieties can become extinct. Even growing one variety and returning one seed to the library is a valuable contribution.

We’re excited to hear about local, unusual or important seeds that we should stock in the library. Please email louisek@cca-glasgow.com if you have a suggestion!

Borrowing seeds

You can find our seeds inside a blue cabinet in the CCA foyer. Feel free to browse, borrow and deposit seeds when visiting. Please record the seeds you have borrowed or returned, using the log book.

If you are saving seed this year and plan to return some to Glasgow Seed Library, you can complete our seed deposit form (find paper copies inside the cabinet). This will help us understand more about your seed’s journey and what next year's growers can expect from it.

We have created a new stamp system to help make our seed collection accessible to a range of growers, especially anyone who is new to growing or has limited space for growing. The stamps also highlight seeds which are rare or unusual, as well as those were grown and saved locally, emphasising the care and time invested in adapting seed to our Glasgow conditions.

For more information on how to access the seed library, download our Easy Read Instructions. Glasgow Seed Library is a free resource for anyone – we only ask that growers aim to return some seed at the end of the season for the community to grow the following year.

Starting with seeds

Each spring, we lend Seed Starter Packs for people who would like to give seed saving a go for the first time. These starter packs contain two varieties of vegetables that are super easy to save seed from, including:

• Lettuce
• Tomatoes
• Peas
• French beans

These species are easy to save from because they are self-pollinating. This means less chance of accidental cross pollination, for example, between the peas that you are saving for seed, and a different variety grown by your neighbour. These seeds will breed 'true to type', which means you get to keep all the unique characteristics of this variety, like colour, size and flavour.

We have different starter packs to suit your growing context. Whether you have a small space outdoors, a larger space or even just a sunny windowsill, we have seeds that will thrive.

Come to a spring seedy social to pick up your seed starter pack!

Guidance, visits & tours

If you are a gardening group needing support with growing a seed crop for the first time, reach out to us and a Seed Librarian may be able to visit and advise you.

We welcome community groups to make a guided visit to Glasgow Seed Library at CCA. Likewise, if your group is new to the world of seed-saving and would like to learn more, a Seed Librarian can visit your community, and give a presentation.

Please get in touch with hamshya@cca-glasgow.com for more information.

Projects 2024

Tending To Workshops
Tending to… is an ongoing series of workshops, designed to build people’s skills and confidence in growing from seed, and offer cheap and accessible ways to care for seed crops in urban spaces. Organised by Glasgow Seed Library and hosted by community gardens around the city.

Living Soil Lab
The Living Soil Lab is a small study group that meets on a monthly basis to explore key aspects of soil ecology through focused research and practical activities.

Planted in this land
A new land justice study group with Glasgow Seed Library exploring past and present struggles for land, food, farming, foraging, roaming and belonging.

Botanic Movement Ecologies
A project documenting the biodiverse and unique flower rich grassland ecologies of urban brownfield sites in Glasgow. By collecting and sowing these wild seeds, we will become part of the movement ecology of Glasgow, mimicking the free wind and the creatures who carry seed and no longer survive due to urbanisation.

Glasgow Seed Circle
A collaborative project bringing together community gardeners from across the city to help develop a seed keeping collective in Glasgow.

Research

For Glasgow Seed Library, seed saving is an ancestral activity, which can be inherited and learned by everyone. We collaborate with researchers to expand and enrich our programme, exchange knowledge between science and humanities, and most importantly, offer a space to put ideas into practice.

Since 2022, we have hosted annual researchers-in-residence, supported by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities:

In 2024, writer Tilly Nevin explored the intersection of the language of human and plant migration. She organised a reading group on migration, language, and gender and hosted creative writing workshops with poets and authors, on themes related to seed dispersal, grief and growth, belonging and borders.

In 2023, artist Sandy Sigala explored how ‘wasted’ post-industrial landscapes can become sites of resistance. She researched the slow process of phytoremediation, where certain plants can break down harmful chemicals from contaminated land, grew sunflowers in sites around the city, and created seed envelopes and a sculpture from their leaves.

In 2022, Désirée Coral, an Ecuadorian-born artist, examined familiar seeds in Glasgow Seed Library – Tomatoes, Beans, Corn and Quinoa – and their journeys from the Americas to the rest of the world. Désirée facilitated local discussions around colonial seeds, their cultural importance, and produced an installation entitled Eating the Ancestors.

From 2024-25, we have an embedded researcher, artworker and gardener Joss Allen, supported by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Williamson Trust. Their PhD project investigates how to support and sustain a flourishing seed commons, working with community seed savers to reimagine a seed catalogue for Glasgow Seed Library.

Finally, Glasgow Seed Library is a member of University of Glasgow’s Food Sovereignty Research Network, out of which we are building relationships with indigenous growers and land stewards in Mexico.

If you would like to get in touch about a potential research project or partnership, please email Rowan at glasgowseedlibrary@cca-glasgow.com.

Learning resources

Glasgow Seed Library has a reading room of books and zines relating to growing, gardening, botany, ecology and food justice. You can find everything from recipes for herbal medicines, fiction about seedkeeping, histories of land struggle and collections of poetry. Come and access these resources for free by attending a Seed Study session or email glasgowseedlibrary@cca-glasgow.com for other days and times.

You can browse our online archive of workshop resources covering soil health, seedling care, seed saving and seed breeding. For a space for learner seed savers to share experiences, stories and support with raising seed crops, please join our Seed-Lings Whatsapp group.

Our Living Soil Lab archive is updated regularly with learning materials around specific topics related to soil health. These resources are ideal for anyone who wants to learn about soil ecology, but can’t make it to the sessions, or who would like to set up their own living soil lab!

Planted in this Land, our land justice study group has an online resource folder of PDFs and audio recordings. Browse materials exploring past and present struggles for land, food, farming, foraging, roaming and belonging. View and contribute to a shared reading list.

Other resources we recommend:

• Gaia Foundation's Seed Sovereignty Programme: seedsovereignty.info
• Joseph Lofthouse's Going to Seed: goingtoseed.org
• Dan Brisebois's Gone to Seed: danbrisebois.com
• Open Source Seed Initiative: osseeds.org
• DIY Seeds videos: diyseeds.org
• Vital Seeds' online seed saving course: vitalseeds.co.uk
• Real Seeds' seed savers guide: realseeds.co.uk

People and Partners

Glasgow Seed Library has always been a collective endeavour, and was launched in 2019 with the support of Glasgow Community Food Network.

Current seed librarians are Rowan Lear, Louise King and Hamshya Rajkumar.

Our previous seed librarian is Alkmini Gkousiari. Others who were involved in the creation and initial formation of the library include: Thomas Abercromby, Emilia Beatriz, Clara Bondier, Hannah Brazil, Francis McKee, Abi Mordin, Daniel Godínez Nivón, Ainslie Roddick, Richie Walsh and Judy Wilkinson.

Our community partners include: Lambhill Stables Community Garden, Civic House, East Pollokshields Quad, G3 Growers, Galgael, Gathering Ground, Gilded Lily, Glasgow Zine Festival, The Children’s Wood, The Wash House Garden, Govanhill Baths, The Hidden Gardens, Kinning Park Complex, Sacro's Garden Project, The Bowling Green, The Concrete Garden, The Dream Machine and Woodlands Community.

Organisations and networks we work with include: Glasgow Community Food Network, Glasgow Allotments Forum, Goethe-Institut, Propagate, Scottish Communities Climate Action Network, Seed Library Network, The Gaia Foundation, The Landworkers’ Alliance and Urban Roots.