Diario del proyecto MNSEED Native Plant Community Science Project

Seed saving events to learn, collect, process and share native plant seed have been the hallmark of MnSEED, a community science project that connects the power of saving seeds from native plants with the gardening community and local growers in Minnesota. In April, the MnSEED project brought hands-on activities to Como Park’s Celebrate Spring event in St Paul. Likewise in May, the project participated in the Mighty Midway Spring Festival in the Hamline Midway neighborhood, also in St. Paul. Seed cleaning and seed sharing activities engaged event-goers who threshed, winnowed, and sieved plant material to yield clean seeds ready for stratifying or planting! Visitors selected seed packets at our exhibit booth, from varieties which are frequently now sold out at local nurseries. All along, lots of questions about plants, pollinators and seed how-to were offered and answered. During the 2022 summer, look for more MnSEED exhibiting at other community fairs and events such as V-FEST (https://vfestmn.com/), and the Gibbs Farm Pathways to Dakota & Pioneer Life’s Apple Festival (https://www.rchs.com/gibbs-farm/) .

You can connect to this local native plant seed-keeping cycle right now by joining MnSEED's email list , or checking out the online resources the project has collected here:
https://northerngardener.org/mn-seed-project/

Beyond exhibiting at fairs, more in-person collection opportunities will happen later in 2022 where participants can harvest seeds at various gardens and naturalized sites in the Twin Cities. This series not only teaches the basics of seed collecting, but provides access to dozens of native plant species to expand our collective native pollinator plantings. Many of the 250,000 seeds of 67 native species that were harvested during last season's collection events are now germinating in Minnesota containers and pots for area backyard and community plantings. One St Paul community is using plants propagated with a MnSEED seed source for a right-of-way greening project called "The Bee Line". So far this campaign has used winter sowing kits to germinate 56 different native plant species! (see https://www.stephaniehankerson.com/blog/pierce-butler-meadows-2019-rundown)