[birds chirping]
- The Roman orator Cicero said,
"If you have a garden and a library,
you have everything you need."
- When you think about it, that's probably pretty true.
You might want to throw a house and a stove in there.
But, yeah, it's two vital things
that make for a good life, I think.
[running water]
- Cindy Mischnick is living that good life.
- You taste a vegetable
that's grown from an heirloom seed or is grown locally,
has no comparison
to something that you buy in a grocery store.
- As a gardener and librarian,
Cindy was a driving force behind Wisconsin's first seed library.
Seed packets you can check out
from the La Crosse Public Library
in the spring and plant in your garden.
- We're not only gardeners, but we're also cataloguers.
And we collect information of all types and catalogue it
and make it available to the public.
And it just so happens that seeds can be in that category.
- La Crosse's library
was initially stocked by Seed Savers,
[door slam]
the nonprofit Iowa farm
that preserves heirloom plant varieties.
- Seed Savers also provides training on how to save seeds
so they can be brought back to the library
to keep the collection growing.
- If you wouldn't mind splitting open a pod or two.
This is how we do the real work at Seed Savers.
We get audiences do it. [laughter]
- Whether it's separating beans from pods
or letting tomato seeds stew in their own juices,
each variety has a best way to save the seeds.
- There's a lot of junk that's also getting in there.
- And Cindy found that holding events around seed saving
helped grow a community of fellow seed collectors.
- It seems like you can't stop talking
about the excitement of seeds and the plants that you grew.
- Did the squirrels get any of them?
- They did not.
- And the recipes that you make.
- What did you use the arugula in this year?
- Just salads.
- It's a real sense of community.
We're finding it grows and grows.
- You had a good crop?
- Very good crop.
- You'll be back next year then?
- I sure will. - All right.
- There is an heirloom seed swapping group on Facebook.
- Great libraries grow communities.
We want to be a dynamic part of a growing community.
- And keeping heirloom seeds in circulation
ensures that a wide range of plant varieties survive.
- I think we're losing some genetic diversity
because of more commercial seeds.
- Seed companies once offered thousands of crops.
But over time companies consolidated
and offered only a limited range of best sellers.
So the genetics of less popular species were lost.
The seed library keeps more variety in circulation.
- We are actually keeping information then
that's really important to the planet.
- And that's just what a librarian does.
- To be a librarian that has seeds in your life
is just a really good personal fit for me.
And it's been really, really fun.
I couldn't have asked for anything better.
[water running]