Growing Green Thumbs and Cultivating Our Community
Learning how to live with the natural world around you is just as much a part of literacy as learning how to use a computer or finding your next book. Here’s how we’re putting Racine back in touch with our landscape.
The Seed Library
Our seed library will open for the 2024 growing season by Friday, March 8. This resource offers vegetable (and sometimes herb and fruit) seeds for you to take home. The seeds are free, but please take only what you will use so we can serve all of our visitors. No checkout is required on the seeds.
To take seeds home, stop by the Beyond Books collection on the second floor. Our seed library is the tall, mossy cabinet alongside the Beyond Books nook. Each seed comes packaged in a handy packet with quantity, growing advice, and information about what businesses and organizations provided the seeds.
The Racine Public Library Seed Library is offered in partnership with UW Extension to help our community eat and grow healthy food on any budget.
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Does the Racine Public Library accept seed donations?
We do not accept seed donations from our visitors. Unfortunately, it’s easy for homegrown seeds to transfer blight and other diseases to other gardens. We work with agricultural and gardening businesses to offer seeds that visitors can take home with the assurance that they will be safe for their gardens.
Where do the Racine Public Library’s seeds come from?
Native Plant Garden
On Friday, June 24, 2022, we installed more than 600 native plants around our Library Drive book drops. Thank you to Root-Pike Watershed Initiative Network and all the volunteers who helped plant this garden.
This pollinator garden helps support a healthy ecosystem for birds, bees and butterflies. We purchased our plants from Taylor Creek Restoration Nursery with the support of our generous donors.