The Warren County Public Library is seeking seed donations and volunteers to help establish its seed library.

“We really wanted to start up a seed library as a way for our community to have more access to seeds and to encourage home gardening,” said library Educational Delivery Services Coordinator Laura Beth Fox-Ezell. “We hope to open it up for public use in early spring.”

The seeds would be free through the library, Fox-Ezell said. The library has already received seeds through grants.

Fox-Ezell hopes that people who save seeds from their own gardens will donate some to the library.

“We’re now accepting donations through early spring and really all year long,” she said. “We want to have a sustainable seed library all year long.”

Volunteers will help organize, sort and maintain the seeds, Fox-Ezell said.

“I really want the public to take ownership,” she said. “The goal for the program is for it to be community run.”

Fox-Ezell got the idea for the seed library after visiting a library in Nashville.

“It’s something a lot of libraries are doing,” she said. “I think it’s awesome.”

Bob Kirby Branch Youth Services Coordinator Elizabeth Rheaume has been helping Fox-Ezell with the project.

“For the past couple of years I’ve raised bed gardens with preschoolers. I teamed up with the (Warren County) Extension Office with that,” she said. “We harvested vegetables and tasted them. We had it where they could do it off the children’s room. We did tomatoes, squash, zucchini, mini pumpkins, bell peppers and mini sweet peppers.”

Rheaume wondered how they could make the project library-wide and not just for preschoolers.

“People can bring in seeds that they have and also be able to pick up seeds they do not have,” she said. “We’ll have information on how to garden with them.”

The seeds will be fruits, vegetables and flowers, Rheaume said.

“We’ll have a card catalogue of seeds. It will look like an old-time card catalogue,” she said. “They can drop off seeds at any (library) location. We will have programs about gardening as well.”

— Follow features reporter Alyssa Harvey on Twitter @bgdnfeatures or visit bgdailynews.com.