Mora Grows Seed Lending Library

SeedBroadcast recently met with Marleny Alfaro, originally from Cuba and now living and creating her life and biodynamic farm in Mora.  She has taken on the creation of a seed library and to kick this off there will be a seed interchange on March 23rd from 9am to 11am at Tapetes de Lana, located at the corner of Hwy 518 and Hwy 434, in Mora. The SeedBroadcast Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station is delighted to be partnering with Mora Grows and will be traveling to Mora to support this community event, to meet with community members, to gather and share local seed stories and to learn. Please come and join us.

The following is what Marleny sent to SeedBroadcast:

Our purpose is to save and share seeds that have been adapted to the area, as well as to educate those who have little experience in the art of saving seeds. Events for children will be announced after our first seed interchange. The lending library will be a place for you and your family to obtain and to pass on seeds that have been cherished by locals, strengthening our community's  ability to sustain itself, and passing on wisdom from generation to generation. Protecting our resources and keeping our seed stock safe from genetically modified seeds is one of our goals.

If you feel called to help with this endeavor, there are several ways in which you may help:

1. Promote event
2. Create table signs
3. Create educational posters
4. Find volunteers
5. Day of event orientation help
6. Clean up

We will organize our tables, as well as our library, by plant families. We are in need of a wooden cabinet with many drawers. We will re-finish or repair it. If you possess computer, artistic, organizational, gardening skills, or if you simply wish to help and don't know how, we invite you to contact us at  moragrows@gmail.com and you may visit our page www.moragrows.wordpress.com for more details.

We hope to see you there.

Albuquerque Seed Swap!

As spring nears the potential for growing seed swaps is at hand!

Peter Gallo from the Albuquerque Urban Farm and Garden Cooperative, in the south valley, just wrote to announce the date for their annual seed swap.

Here is their information:

Spring Seed Swap and Picnic!

Sunday, February 3, 2013 from 12 - 4pm
731 La Vega Ct SW
Albuquerque, NM 87105

Spring is right around the corner and some of you have already begun your indoor planting and preparing your outdoor gardens. Lets start the year out right by working together to make our gardens more fruitful!

Last year's seed swap was a great success and we are looking forward to hosting again and hopefully seeing some new faces.

Please bring… *non-GMO seeds/heirloom seeds- We are all about honoring and protecting the right to save our own seeds and grow unadulterated foods. Seeds can be packaged or saved from your gardens but must be GMO free! The seeds can be vegetables, fruits, herbs, medicinal herbs, flowers, whatever you have to trade!

 (Have an idea of what kind of seeds you're looking for)

*Something to put your acquired seeds into- This can be little baggies, small paper envelopes or handmade envelopes. It doesn't really matter but we will not be providing this and the swappers are not required to bring containers for others.

*A healthy potluck dish- Please include a serving utensil and an ingredients list for vegetarians or those who may have food sensitivities.

Event starts at noon with meet and greet. Coffee and refreshments will be provided. The swap will start promptly at 1pm and will go on throughout the afternoon as we enjoy our picnic lunch.

This is also a great opportunity to network with other folks, so bring your business cards and an area will be provided for them.

This will be a wonderful event and a great start to the year! Blessed Spring!

Here is a link to their facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Albuquerque-Urban-Farm-and-Garden-Cooperative/214070485354377

Reflections: January 19th 2013

As SeedBroadcast gears up for the coming year we have been reflecting on all of the incredible encounters and relationships that we have made with seed savers, gardeners, local food growers, students and those who just want to have access to healthy locally grown food. These encounters have been made across the country through community events, creative workshops, gatherings and partnering with like-minded folks.  At all of our SeedBroadcast stops, which have included libraries, farms, gardens, museums and downtown street corners, we have invited people to fill out a seed survey. These surveys help guide us to define and fine tune our intent, purpose and where best to put our resources. We believe that there is a wisdom held in each locale and we are curious to learn and hopefully share the similarities and discrepancies in regards to seed saving, dispersal and the growing and easy access of healthy local food. Really we do read these surveys.

Completed surveys at the Campartiendo Semillas, Sembrando el Futuro Seed Exchange

 in Las Vegas, New Mexico, 2012

This year SeedBroadcast has committed to investing time back to the genesis of the project, the Las Vegas, San Miquel, Mora and Guadalupe Counties of Northern New Mexico. We will be gathering and dispersing ideas, skills and seeds in various locations and will continue to present what we encounter through this blog. In order to orientate ourselves we have been going back through the surveys that were completed at last years seed exchange in Las Vegas.

The following is a selection of thoughts from these surveys.

On the idea of why save and share seeds:

Andrea from Las vegas,

"To nurture and share pure natural food and plants with human kind."

Joe from Las Vegas,

"To grow food for my family." 

Kathleen from Ocate,

 "I like the quality of my crops."

Reyna from Las Vegas,

"I would like to be more self -sufficient and help ensure that there will be uncorrupted seeds for the future."

And Trina from Tecolote,

"So that others can enjoy the whole experience of growing."

On what a seed library should be:

Annabel from Anton Chico,

"It could have all kinds of seeds and all the information that an individual would need to know about the seed."

Grace from Las Vegas,

"A selection of all the seeds available in our area."

And Jeffery from Mora.

"A place where seeds of all kinds are stored and easily accessible."

On why people have stopped saving seeds:

 Kerry from Las Vegas,

"We stopped valuing them as a resource when large scale farming became more popular."

Marge from Las Vegas,

"It is lazy to just go and buy the vegetables and flowers already grown without the hassle of doing it yourself."

And Reyna from Las Vegas,

"I think people stopped saving seeds due to not being educated on preservation of them for growth. "

Our seed survey can be found here at the PARTICIPATE! page and can be filled in online. We invite you to share your thoughts and especially any seed stories that you hold. This seed story might be about the seeds your grandmother saved, the tin of corn kernels that were found in an attic, the ancient seeds you might have been given or about your favorite seeds.  Some of these stories we have been recording and you can access them here at our Seed Story Soundcloud.

But you can write them too and we will post them on the blog. 

We look forward to hearing from you.

Armand Saiia from Infinity Farm in Ribera, New Mexico sharing a seed story.

Dixon Elementary School Visit

 Early on the morning of Monday October 29th, with the air still chilly from low overnight temperatures, students, teachers and parents from Dixon Elementary School arrived on mass to the Taos Center for the Arts to take part in SEED4 www.seedtaos.org

Aaliyah Sanchez at the seed drawing station.

 From the beginning, experiential education has been an essential component of the show. At SEED exhibitions visitors are encouraged not only to look at artwork inspired by the seed but also to engage in hands-on learning about the remarkable lives of seeds and their utmost importance in our lives. The SEED Exploratorium, is an entire room with new displays every year dedicated to engaging all five senses, so that understanding can be synthesized in multiple ways. This year SEED 4 Exploratorium highlighted the theme “Seed to Food”. The "seedettes" a group of four incredible women who organize SEED every year put allot of their energies into arranging field trips for local schools and the Dixon group,of kindergarten Ist and 2nd graders, were to be the last group before the closing of the exhibition.

Benjamin Gonzales with his seed story.

Denim Padberg  sharing his seed drawing.

 Katie Woodall, a seedette, skillfully gathered the group outside the exhibition space and introduced everyone to the various areas of activity, the exhibition, the exploratorium and the SeedBroadcast mobile station.  SeedBroadcast provided a creative seed drawing station, where the students could look at seeds through lenses and make drawings to place on the seed wall in the broadcast unit. Inside the unit they investigated the Ipods to discover seed videos, seed story interviews, and looked at the seed books. In preparation for this visit, their teacher Eva Behrens, had the students create their own seed stories so they could be recorded. When each student felt ready and confident we introduced them to the recording equipment, did sound tests and then asked them to tell us their stories. Here are a selection.  Eva will continue to record other stories back in her classroom as as we receive these they will be  added to the seeds story library.  Thank you so much students for being so courageous in sharing your stories with us. 

Investigating ipods in the mobile broadcasting unit.

Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station and Seed Stories from Taos, New Mexico

Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting and the Creative Seed Drawing Station in Taos, New Mexico.

SeedBroadcast hosted the Seed Story Broadcasting Station outside the Stables Gallery, at the Taos Center for the Arts, during the final weekend of the Seed 4 exhibition. Broadcasting in the public parking lot between the gallery, the Taos Auditorium, the main strip, and Kit Carson State Park, many passerby's stopped by to see what was going on. While the station played seed stories over the outside loud speakers to the Taoseno environs, people were encouraged to explore the resources in the Station and make drawings of favorite seeds and plants to be posted on the bulletin board inside the van.

SeedBroadcaster, Chrissie Orr, watches as a Seed Story picture is drawn.

Many people came by to share seed stories from the Taos area, as well as from distant homes. Conversations arose over local seed security, a concern many local growers have that their rights as food producers and seed savers will be compromised if resources such as seeds and water become controlled by the proprietary interests of corporations and governments.

Watching the video Seeds of Freedom inside the Mobile Broadcasting Station.

During the afternoon, Greg Nussbaum, along with a young student from Camino De Paz, stopped by after their morning selling produce at the Taos Farmers' Market. Greg, the Camino De Paz's Farm Director, shared information about their amazing school, located outside of Santa Cruz, NM. It is a farm-based middle school, which integrates hands-on working experiences of living on a farm with applied learning in the fields of "sustainable living practices, traditional arts and crafts, ecology and environmental education." Asking the question...what if public education looked like this?

We asked those we met if there was a Taos seed swap, seed library, or informal seed sharing organization, and no one seemed to know of any....although everyone seemed to think it was a grand idea. Perhaps folks we met over the weekend would be interested in working together to organize one? If you would be interested in getting involved with this please email us and we will try to get everyone in touch.

Looking at corn From Fodder Project Collaborative Research Farm and sharing some seeds.

Miguel Santisevan, a local farmer and teacher we spoke to via email, said he has been working on a seed library for several years. Its goal is to increase local seed stock among area farmers. Even though this seed library is not a public resource at this time, he encourages people to contact him to find out more about the agricultural projects their farm is undertaking. In the future, they hope to build seed networks among local farmers, and provide seed saving, cleaning, and processing workshops. You can find out more about their projects and contact Miguel at: http://solfelizfarm.wordpress.com/

Taos Seed Stories are now being broadcast!
Here are the Seed Stories from people we met over the weekend. Thank you all for sharing these wonderful stories.