I spent a Saturday a few weeks ago at the Five Valleys Seed Swap at the Rocky Mountain Exploration Center, armed with a stack of pamphlets about community garden applications and volunteer opportunities. I was not, shall we say, the belle of the seed swap.

But the energy in that room stopped me in my tracks. Hundreds of Montanans cycled through, most of them gravitating immediately toward the long tables at the center — boxes and boxes of seeds, organized alphabetically, one side for vegetables, one for herbs, one for flowers. People leaned over the tables, reading labels, comparing notes . The surfaces of these tables were covered in boxes chock full of seeds.

That swap is one expression of something that's been quietly growing in Missoula for years: the Five Valleys Seed Library. And we're lucky enough to be one of its home sites, right here at our River Road office.

Before the Seed Swap began, the tables were organized and ready.

What is a seed library?

A seed library is exactly what it sounds like — a collection of seeds you can borrow for a season. The idea is simple and kind of beautiful: make seeds more accessible, more abundant, and turn the act of growing food into something shared rather than solitary. You check out seeds in spring, plant them, and when those plants flower and go to seed at the end of the season, you collect and return them. The library grows along with the community.

This cycle of returning also keeps open-pollinated (OP) and heirloom varieties alive and in rotation — which matters more than you might think. More on seed saving and heirloom varieties can be found in this blog post! Curious about hybrid seeds? Read more here.

Not all seed libraries are the same. Some are small and depend entirely on people returning seeds at the end of the season to keep things going — so that "bring back what you can" ask is genuine, not just a formality.

Where to find Five Valleys Seed Library in Missoula:

Missoula Public Library — third floor, next to the demonstration kitchen
Mansfield Library, UM campus — next to the checkout desk
Rocky Mountain Exploration Center — by the Butterfly House
Garden City Harvest, 1657 River Road — that's us! Browse the drawers, take what calls to you, and sign out your selections.

Our River Road library is available Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm.

This is what the Seed Library at Garden City Harvest’s Office looks like:

How to use the Libraries:

When you get to the library, you can look through the drawers and take seed packets. All that’s asked of you is that you take no more than twelve packets per person, and that you sign out which packets you chose. This allows volunteers to restock seeds that have been borrowed to allow some for everyone.

Head to any of the Missoula locations — take your pick!
Browse the seed packets, sorted alphabetically into vegetables, herbs, and flowers.
Check out your seeds by writing your name and selections in the sign-out sheet. If you noticed something running low — say, you grabbed the last packet of rose hips — jot a quick note so volunteers know what to restock.
Plant your seeds and let them grow.
Harvest your food, flowers, and herbs.
At the end of the season, return any seeds you saved.
Come back in spring and do it all over again.

One tip from Farmer Greg: You can take a tip from Farmer Greg and find any information that’s missing on your Five Valleys seed packets by looking through a seed catalog. Google can also be a great resource to help you make decisions on what you’d like to plant.

Why the seed library matters

Growing things is always a bit of an experiment, and seed packets at garden stores can add up fast. The Five Valleys Seed Library removes that financial barrier entirely — free seeds, for anyone, with just a twelve-packet-per-household limit to keep things fair.

The library's seeds come from two main sources. Some are commercially packaged — the kind you'd find at ACE Hardware or Murdoch's. The library often acquires these by asking stores at the end of the growing season if they'd be willing to donate unsold stock.

Some examples of seed packets available at the Missoula seed libraries.

Hand harvested and packaged seeds

The other kind are hand-harvested, packaged, and labeled by local farms and gardens — and these are something special. They don't always have pretty photos on the front, but what they offer instead is something better: growing knowledge specific to this place. These are seeds whose parents already thrived in Western Montana's soil, climate, and particular brand of weather. That means their offspring are more likely to thrive in your garden too — already adapted to our short seasons, our dry summers, our unpredictable springs. It's a kind of local wisdom you can hold in your hand.

More on the values and methods of seed saving can be found here.

A hand harvested packet of aster seeds. Gardeners can continue to fill in information they’ve learned about these seeds through their experiences in growing them.

Get involved

If you want to be part of the team that makes this all happen, volunteers gather at our River Road barn or on Wednesdays from noon to 2pm. And if the seed swap I attended is any indication, these are your people — the ones who get genuinely excited about what's in a little paper packet and what it might become.

Questions? Reach the Five Valleys Seed Library through their Facebook group.

Happy seeding!

Resource spotlight: The Five Valleys Seed Library!