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Join Our Community Seed Growouts 2026
Every year, we invite our members to participate in seed saving projects for beginners and experts.
If you're new to saving seeds, or you have a few years of experience, we invite you to join the Community Seed Grow-out projects below. These are aimed toward gardeners with good experience growing plants, enough space for proper seed-saving isolation, and an enthusiasm for multiplying seeds for next year's projects and for sharing with other gardeners in your community next year.
If you have lots of experience saving seeds, we especially need your help with our Core Seed Library grow-outs (please scroll to the bottom).
Reserve your seeds by March 7 !
Everyone is welcome to join. All you have to do is confirm your contact details and agree to save seeds to share with other gardeners.
Help Explore and Multiply Dwarf Tomato Seeds
We've chosen about a dozen dwarf tomato varieties, ranging from ultra-compact to ~3ft tall. Some are cherry varieties, and some are good-sized slicers, but they all grow on short, compact plants that are perfect for small gardens or containers.
None of them should require staking. All of them are relatively rare.
Your project will be to grow 6 or more tomato plants, take observations through the season, and save seeds to help share those varieties next year. We also hope that you'll share seeds with others in your community.
Learn more about dwarf tomato varieties at https://www.dwarftomatoproject.net
Requirements:
- You will need at least 20 square feet of garden space to grow 6 or more tomato plants 1.5 feet apart.
- You are able grow your tomatoes isolated at least 20 feet apart from any other tomato varieties.
- You will need a warm, bright place indoors to start seedlings, for 6-8 weeks before transplanting.
- Willingness to take observations and collect, clean & share seeds
Join by March 7 - members can login here to reserve their seeds
Help Evaluate Beans for Canadian Climates
We've chosen several bean varieties that we think hold promise to thrive in Canadian growing conditions. We're looking for gardeners who can grow some beans, take detailed notes during the growing season, and save seeds so we can continue this program next year.
Requirements:
- You will need space to grow 15 to 20 feet of bean plants (you can choose bush or pole varieties).
- You are able grow your beans isolated at least 20 feet apart from any other bean varieties.
- Commitment to taking written observations throughout the season
- Willingness to collect, clean & share seeds
Join by March 7 - members can login here to reserve their seeds
Help Breed a Better Ground Cherry Year 7 (intermediate/advanced)
For the past 6 years, gardeners across the country have been working together to develop an upright-growing variety of ground cherry (Physalis pruinosa), planting the prior year’s seed and making selections.
Ground cherries (Physalis pruinosa) are small, sweet, golden-yellow berries that are relatives of tomatillos and tomatoes. Each fruit is enclosed in a wrapper, and it falls from the plant when ripe, so you harvest by picking them off the ground. Since low-growing branches make the berries hard to see, we're breeding for upright branches and good flavour.
- We'll send you a packet of last year’s seeds, collected from all those gardens last year.
- Grow as many plants as you can (15-20 would be a good range to aim for).
- Uproot the short-bearing plants that grow flat on the ground prior to flowering, to prevent them from crossing with the tall-bearing plants.
- Taste the berries and keep seeds only from those with excellent flavour.
Every time we repeat this process we get closer to the goal of a ground cherry that tastes great, and bears on upright (easy to harvest) plants.
Requirements:
- You will need about 30 to 40 square feet of garden space.
- You will need space indoors to start seedlings at 20-25 degrees C, for 8 weeks before transplanting.
Join by March 7 - members can login here to reserve their seeds
Seed Library - Core Grow-Outs
In addition to our Community Grow-Outs, we are always looking for experienced seed savers who can help multiply the especially rare seeds in our Canadian Seed Library collection.
If you're an experienced seed saver interested in helping with preserving high priority varieties for the Seed Library, please fill out THIS FORM (or contact our Seed Library Co-ordinator at growers@seeds.ca with any questions)
Not yet a member?
An annual membership to Seeds of Diversity gives you access to our seed exchange, seed grow-out programs, and our online news.
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