ROCHELLE — On Saturday, Jan. 25, the Flagg-Rochelle Public Library hosted a Seed Swap Day. The event served as the 2025 kickoff for the seed library at the location, which is free and available to the public each day in its second year since its inception.
Attendees were able to bring seeds to swap with local gardeners or browse the library’s seed catalog to get growing for spring. The event included gardening activities, giveaways and more, including an introduction to the seed library, a winter sowing activity, seed treatments for native plants, information on garden tool maintenance, and creation of a recycled bottle herb garden and decorating metal garden stakes.
“It's going well,” Library Outreach Clerk Ashley Capes said. “We've had an OK turnout. We have a lot of different gardening stations set up and people are coming in to donate or pick up seeds for spring planting. People are learning about native plants and we're marketing some of our programs for the spring. We have a kids activity and people seem to be enjoying everything.”
The seed library has also included gardening programming for 4-H kids and adults.
“This is probably about a year in planning, just figuring out what we'd like to highlight for the seed library,” Capes said. “We want to make sure the seeds are the star of the show, but we also want to introduce people who maybe don't know anything about gardening to it and different things they can do like winter sowing and growing seeds in a milk jug or a recycled water bottle. There are all different ways to plant a garden.”
The library hopes to see more growth in its seed library and gardening programs in the coming year. The seed library and programs are put on through a partnership between the library and the Ogle County Master Gardeners.
During 2025, the library and Master Gardeners will host programs such as Rookie Gardening, a three-session basic gardening 101 course where people can plan their garden plots and learn pest and weed management and fertilization. The library also hopes to partner with the University of Illinois Extension office on a 10-week Healthy Homegrown program, which shows people how to grow food and cook with it. Both of those programs would be free and would not require a library card.
“We hope that people come and learn about our seed library that we have and all of our gardening workshops we have coming up for children and adults in the spring and the summer and just to check out the library in general while they're here,” Capes said. “We like seeing people get excited about gardening. We like to see people coming and using the seed library. We like to hear people's successes and maybe even their failures of what they've grown and what they can donate back to the library.”
Capes said the library has enjoyed its partnership with the Master Gardeners, whom she called “amazing.” The group’s members bring expertise about everything from planting to harvesting to pest control to fertilizing. To become an Ogle County Master Gardener, you have to undergo training and complete 60 volunteer hours as an intern over two years. Then, you do 10 hours of continuing education each year along with volunteer hours.
Jan. 25 saw warmer weather after multiple days of temperatures near zero. Capes said that made people start thinking more about spring and gardening. The seed library has seeds that people can get started on early and transplant as the weather improves.
“We're really hoping that people are going to get excited about the upcoming growing season,” Capes said. “We have the seed library and we'll be doing our rookie gardening program starting in February. We're bringing the homegrown healthy program in May to teach people how to grow, harvest and use the things that they plant. We have our regular library programs going on all year and we're going to start gearing up for summer soon. We're excited about incorporating the master gardeners, the 4-H clubs and the community in general to start utilizing our resources here at the library more.”