Library card, please.

Here's a seedy development. La Crosse is the first city (and hopefully not the last) in Wisconsin to have “heirloom seeds” available for check out at their local library. Heirloom seeds are seeds commonly grown during earlier periods in human history, but are not used in modern large-scale agriculture and are not genetically modified. La Crosse librarian Kelly Becker says that heirloom seed programs is about tradition. “It basically has to do with the sustainability movement: keeping food local, and for people to grow things for themselves and be self-supporting,” Becker said. The seeds were purchased from the Seed Savers Exchange, co-founded by Diane Ott Whealy. The checkout process is easy; essentially people will be able to come in and get the seeds using their library card. At the end of the growing season it then becomes the borrowers responsibility to give back as many seeds as they took. Unfortunately there are only about a dozen seed libraries nationwide at the moment, but Weasly believes that the movement is growing and hopefully it reaches the Chippewa Valley sooner rather than later.