Community Seed Project

We grow and save seeds for local distribution, teach seed saving skills to hundreds of youth and adults each year, and distribute free seeds to nonprofits with gardening programming. 

Please see our Seed Give Away Catalog, a collaboration with the Hudson Valley Seed Library, if you are interested in free seeds for a school garden or nonprofit organization gardening program.  To apply, please fill out our online application or contact us for a form.

PFP grown seeds are available for sale through the Hudson Valley Seed Library.  HVSL is a local company that creates accessible and affordable regionally-adapted seeds that are maintained by a community of caring farmers and gardeners in the Hudson Valley. This year, they expect to offer 60 varieties of locally grown seed and around 100 varieties sourced from responsible seed houses. Through their “Green$eed” program, the PFP will receive 25% of any online purchases made by using our code, PFP. Seeds may also be purchased directly at the PFP’s Open House and Plant Sales in May. To order online, go to seedlibrary.org and at the checkout, submit our code PFP before placing your order. PFP seeds in the catalog include lettuces, beans, and tomatoes. Happy seeding!

Cultivating Community Self-Sufficiency

Seed saving involves knowledge and skills that have been lost to many of us in the modern age. The control over seed production by a handful of large for-profit corporations is an inherent threat to food security. The top 10 multinational seed firms control half of the world's commercial seed sales, leaving us all vulnerable to the business decisions and success of just a few corporations. This concentration of seed ownership both reflects and drives the loss of food sovereignty, or meaningful democratic participation in the food system.

There are only a handful of small companies growing seeds in the Northeast United States providing sources of seed that are adapted to the region and chemical-free growing conditions. A working knowledge of seed saving and the self-sufficiency it allows is almost lost amongst modern farmers and gardeners. Locally controlled and maintained seed sources are of primary importance to community food security.

City Seeds Seed Bank and Garden

Seed saving allows us greater self-sufficiency and gives us greater control over our own food supply. By selecting and saving the seeds that grow well in our region and giving others the tools to do so, we are increasing the availability of regionally adapted seeds. By teaching gardeners and farmers to grow old varieties and how to breed new ones, we can help protect the biodiversity of our Earth and our food system. The Community Seed Project is a resource for learning and a source for open pollinated, regionally adapted and heirloom seeds in the Mid-Hudson Valley.  

Through educational programs and hands-on experience, the Community Seed Project inspires the application of botanical knowledge and gardening skills, as well as a sense of community self-sufficiency. In learning to save seeds from plants they have helped to grow, youth and adults draw on the generative power of the earth to nurture the generative power of urban communities.

Seeds are the First Link in the Food Chain

• Preserve the dying art of seed saving
• Conserve biodiversity and genetic resources in an era of vulnerable agricultural monocultures and global climate change
• Gain public control and self-sufficiency of the seed supply and the food we have available to us to eat
• Work toward regional sustainability and increase regional food security
• Create seeds that are adapted to organic growing practices in the northeast
• Preserve cultural heritage