ABQ-BERNCO Seed Library
Home Gardening
Whether new to gardening, a continuing student of gardening, or a gardening veteran, the Seed Library will endeavor to provide new and staple varieties of vegetable, herb, and flower seeds annually for customers to check out.
In addition, the Seed Library offers free garden-related programming throughout the year. Recent program topics have included
- Summer Grapevine Management
- Growing Bulbs in Albuquerque
- Growing Different Tomato Varieties
- Harvesting and Fall Garden Cleanup
- Vermiculture (Composting with Worms)
- Raised Bed Gardening
- Amending Desert Garden Soil
Check the green Home & Garden Events tab on the left side of this webpage or go to the South Broadway Cultural Center Library events page for upcoming scheduled events.
Book Recommendations
Southwest Fruit and Vegetable Gardening
Written exclusively for gardeners who want to grow edibles in Arizona, New Mexico, or Nevada. Soule shares her bountiful knowledge of edibles in general and the Southwest region in particular, equipping you with all the information you need to design your edible garden, tend the soil, maintain your plants throughout their life cycles, and harvest the delicious foods they produce. So whether you live in the Tucson suburbs, the New Mexico Bootheel, the Mojave Desert, or anywhere else in the southwestern tri-state area, you'll discover the best fruit and vegetable plants for your garden in this beautiful and before you know it you'll have delicious fresh fruits and vegetables on your table.
Gardening with Less Water
Gardening with Less Water offers simple, inexpensive, low-tech techniques for watering your garden much more efficiently -- using up to 90% less water for the same results. With illustrated step-by-step instructions, the resource shows you how to install buried clay pots and pipes, wicking systems, and other porous containers that deliver water directly to a plant's roots with little to no evaporation. These systems are available at hardware stores and garden centers; are easy to set up and use; and work for garden beds, container gardens, and trees.
The Bee-Friendly Garden
For every gardener who cares about the planet, this guide to designing a bee garden helps you create a stunningly colorful, vibrant, healthy habitat that attracts both honeybees and native bees. In The Bee-Friendly Garden, award-winning garden designer Kate Frey and bee expert Gretchen LeBuhn provide everything you need to know to create a dazzling garden that helps both the threatened honeybee and our own native bees. No matter how small or large your space, and regardless of whether you live in the city, suburbs, or country, just a few simple changes to your garden can fight the effects of colony collapse disorder and the worldwide decline in bee population that threatens our global food chain. There are many personal benefits of having a bee garden as well! Bee gardens: · contain a gorgeous variety of flowers · bloom continuously throughout the seasons · are organic, pesticide-free, and ecologically sustainable · develop healthy and fertile soil · attract birds, butterflies, and other beneficial insects · increase the quantity of your fruit and vegetable harvest · improve the quality, flavor, and size of your produce Illustrated with spectacular full-color photos, The Bee-Friendly Garden debunks myths about bees, explains seasonal flower progression, and provides detailed instructions for nest boxes and water features. From "super blooming" flowers to regional plant lists and plants to avoid, The Bee-Friendly Garden is an essential tool for every gardener who cares about the planet and wants to make their yard a welcomiEverything you need to know to create a dazzling garden that helps both the threatened honeybee and our own native bees. No matter how small or large your space, and regardless of whether you live in the city, suburbs, or country, just a few simple changes to your garden can fight the effects of colony collapse disorder and the worldwide decline in bee population that threatens our global food chain. The many personal benefits of having a bee garden include a gorgeous variety of flowers, continuous blooming, organic, pesticide-free output, and ecologically sustainable gardening, healthy soil, and it will attract birds, butterflies, and other beneficial insects. From "super blooming" flowers to regional plant lists and plants to avoid, The Bee-Friendly Garden is an essential tool for every gardener who cares about the planet and wants to make their yard a welcoming habitat for nature's most productive pollinator.g habitat for nature's most productive pollinator.
Heirloom Plants
Gardeners can't resist the allure of heirloom plants. Their names alone sound inviting: Flanders Purple kale, Golden Marconi sweet peppers, Moon & Stars watermelons, Turk's Turban squash, Scarlet Emperor running beans, and Jefferson plums. Beyond the classic appeal, however, lies the far more important issue of biodiversity. Unless these unique seeds are grown and saved, they will not only be forgotten, but lost forever. Based on the extensive seed catalogs of Thomas Etty, the popular heirloom seedsman, Heirloom Plants includes information on almost 500 exciting cultivars to be grown and harvested, along with detailed profiles and cultivation tips for each plant.
Martha's Flowers
Expert advice and lessons on gardening and making the most of your spectacular blooms. The indispensable lessons Stewart learned as a child -- and those she has since picked up from master gardeners -- form the best practices she applies to her voluminous flower gardens today. For the first time, she compiles the wisdom of a lifetime spent gardening into a practical yet inspired book. Learn how and when to plant, nurture, and at the perfect time, cut from your garden. With lush blooms in hand, discover how to build stunning arrangements.
Edible Landscaping
Since Rosalind Creasy popularized the concept of landscaping with edibles a quarter-century ago, interest in eating healthy, fresh, locally grown foods has swept across the nation. More and more Americans are looking to grow clean, delicious produce at home, saving money and natural resources at the same time. And food plants have been freed from the backyard, gracing the finest landscapes -- even the White House grounds!
The Culinary Herbal
Good cooks know that when it comes to herbs, there is nothing better than those that are clipped fresh from the garden. This book highlights 97 delicious varieties -- like black cumin, fenugreek, lemon balm, and sassafras -- that every food lover will want to add to their kitchen garden. In this gorgeously photographed guide, home cooks will learn which herbs offer the most flavor, how to grow them at home, and how to put them to use. Plant profiles are organized alphabetically by herb type and include basic growing information, flavor notes, and culinary uses. Additional information includes step-by-step instructions for harvesting, preserving, and storing, along with techniques for making pastes, syrups, vinegars, and butters.
Books 1
Square Foot Gardening: Growing Perfect Vegetables by
Square Foot Gardening: Growing Perfect Vegetables is a practical guide that answers the age-old question for gardeners: How do you know when a fruit or vegetable is ripe? Whether you grow in a Square Foot Garden, a straw bale garden, containers, or a traditional garden plot, you'll be happy to have this helpful garden book so you can approach harvest time with confidence, not apprehension. Because even the most experienced homegrowers get a little nervous when harvest time comes around. Hundreds of beautiful photos that show you exactly how produce should look when perfectly ripe, and ready for picking and buying, and it even includes tips and clues to help you interpret what your plants are trying to tell you about the fruit they are bearing.
Practical Organic Gardening by
Get your hands dirty in the garden with this hands-on, up-to-date guide and its high-quality diagrams and photographs. Organic gardening isn't just for environmentalists anymore! Over the last several years it has become a popular gardening method but organic gardening has actually been around for most of the last century. Written by Mark Highland, founder of The Organic Mechanic, this is far from a hippie manifesto; it is a scientifically driven, modern-day dive into the organic methods, products, and practices that will appeal to any home gardener looking to make the transition from conventional to organic.
Water-Smart Gardening by
You can have a colorful, striking garden that's drought resistant too with water-smart gardening! This book gives you all the tools needed to create a water-smart landscape and garden. Choose water-smart plants that survive and even thrive in low-water situations, tap into the power of evolution and use plants native to your area, time your irrigation and install water-collection devices such as cisterns and rain barrels. Gorgeous photos throughout Water-Smart Gardening will inspire you with beautiful garden ideas and help you see your way to a garden that sips water instead of gulping it.
Pollinator Friendly Gardening by
Pollinators such as monarch butterflies and bees are under threat, and more and more gardeners want to do all they can to create a hospitable space for them. That's where Pollinator Friendly Gardening comes in. It identifies the most visible and beloved pollinators: bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, as well as some more unlikely candidates such as ants, wasps, and beetles. It then explains the intriguing synergy between plants and pollinators. This vital information makes it a unique sourcebook to share the ways that anyone can make a yard a more friendly place for pollinators. Plant selection, hardscape choices, habitat building (both natural and manmade), and growing practices that give pollinators their best chance in the garden are all covered in detail!
Blue Ribbon Vegetable Gardening by
Filled with the excitement of a county fair, this book it's a fun read as well as a solid guide to growing the biggest, tastiest, best-looking vegetables for miles around. Win the blue ribbon every time! Grow beautiful vegetables -- beans, beets, cabbages, cucumbers, eggplants, onions, peppers, pumpkins, squash, and tomatoes -- covering everything from choosing the right varieties and scheduling planting dates to harvesting, preparing, and transporting your produce.
Growing Vegetables in Drought, Desert and Dry Times by
Here is the definitive guide to growing healthy organic vegetables without wasting our precious water resources! This incredibly timely book will give dedicated home gardeners the know-how to grow delicious produce in dry times, focusing on four different low-water conditions in the western United States: voluntary water conservation, drought, and both high and low desert. Using modern techniques, as well as tips and stories from native traditions ranging from the southwestern United States to the Middle East, this guide offers the best of ancient wisdom and the newest innovations in conservation, and includes varietal recommendations and a seasonal crop guide.
Indoor Kitchen Gardening by
Imagine serving a home-cooked meal highlighted with beet, arugula, and broccoli microgreens grown right in your kitchen, accompanied by sautéed winecap mushrooms grown in a box of sawdust in your basement. If you have never tasted microgreens, all you really need to do is envision all the flavor of an entire vegetable plant concentrated into a single tantalizing seedling. Author Elizabeth Millard teaches you how to grow microgreens, sprouts, herbs, mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, and more -- all inside your own home, where you won't have to worry about seasonal changes or weather conditions. Filled with mouthwatering photography and more than 200 pages of do-it-yourself in-home gardening information and projects.
The Tao of Vegetable Gardening by
Focuses on some of the most popular home garden vegetables -- tomatoes, green beans, peas, and leafy greens -- and through them illustrates the key principles and practices that gardeners need to know to successfully plant and grow just about any food crop. Informed by the philosophy and wisdom of Tao Te Ching, the book is organized into chapters that echo fundamental Taoist concepts: Balance, Flexibility, Honoring the Essential Nature (your own and that of your plants), Effortless Effort, Non-Doing, and even Non-Knowing. Yet the book also offers a wealth of specific and valuable garden advice on diverse and interesting topics like establishing a do-it-yourself seed bank, twenty-four good places to not plant a tree, and thirty-seven good reasons for not planting various vegetables. Designed for gardeners of all levels, from beginners to experienced growers, The Tao of Vegetable Gardening provides a unique frame of reference: a window to the world of nature, in the garden and in ourselves.
Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Southwest by
There is nothing more regionally specific than vegetable gardening--what to plant, when to plant it, and when to harvest are decisions based on climate, weather, and first frost. This book focuses on the unique eccentricities of the Southwest gardening calendar, which include extreme temperatures and low rainfall. The month-by-month format makes it perfect for beginners and accessible to everyone-- gardeners can start gardening the month they pick it up.
