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On the last Saturday in January, Natalie Aird and Josie Flatgard spent the morning at the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, laying out packets and jars of open-pollinated and heirloom seeds for National Seed Swap Day. Among the offerings on tables throughout the room: packets of grayish-brown French Breakfast radish seeds and arrow-shaped Prairie Blazing Star wildflower seeds, and a large jar of pink-speckled Mayflower bean seeds.
A few hours later, in tromped farmers, excited young kids, plant nerds, and community gardeners, banging the snow off their boots and fanning out to add their own seeds to the collection—spiky marigold seeds, glossy multi-colored flint corn, flat squash seeds, tiny round broccoli seeds. And, of course, pick up a few for themselves.
Aird and Flatgard organized the event as representatives of Seed Savers Exchange, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving heirloom seeds, plants, and their stories. Swaps like this are an opportunity for Aird, the seed bank’s inventory coordinator, and Flatgard, the exchange coordinator, to share part of Seed Savers’ vast collection and knowledge with other seed savers. The free events also allow participants to exchange their own plants and seeds with one another, along with related stories, recipes, and growing tips.
In an era where most home gardeners and farmers grow just a handful of the same hybrid varieties, seed and plant swaps help to preserve open-pollinated and heirloom seeds. Some sources estimate that the United States lost 93 percent of its seed diversity between 1903 and 1983 as industrial agriculture prioritized uniform, hybrid varieties.
In an era where most home gardeners and farmers grow just a handful of the same hybrid varieties, seed and plant swaps help to preserve open-pollinated and heirloom seeds.
“Seed swaps are one of the activities that pulls people back into maintaining seeds themselves and not having all the controls be by big multinational companies offering a more limited range of what type of seeds and food is available to you,” said Ira Wallace, sometimes referred to as “the godmother of Southern seeds.”
Wallace is a member of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, a worker-run cooperative dedicated to promoting seed saving and preserving open-pollinated varieties adapted to the Southeast. Open-pollinated seeds are naturally pollinated by insects, birds, people, or wind. They are critical because they are genetically stable varieties that produce “true to type.”
Heirlooms are open-pollinated seeds that have been passed down from generation to generation, like “Angelica’s Little Diablo” pepper. A woman named Angelica and her mother brought the pepper seeds to the United States in the 1970s from Oaxaca, Mexico, where their family had grown the spicy peppers for over a century. Angelica shared the seeds with gardener Norma Ortiz, who donated them to the Seed Savers Exchange around 2020. They have proliferated in home gardens ever since.
Seed and plant swaps don’t require participants to bring anything, so they’re a great place to start if you’re new to gardening or seed saving. Flatgard and Aird said that they like to have plenty of popular, easy-to-save crops like beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and radishes available for beginners. One year, they helped a young family who was new to seed-saving excitedly select a few of these varieties to take home and try—including cowpeas, a delicious, drought-tolerant, easy-to-grow legume.
“It’s so cool to see people nerd out about seeds,” Flatgard said. “The little kiddos were so excited to be involved.”
These swaps may be critical for protecting open-pollinated varieties. Some sources estimate that the United States lost 93 percent of its seed diversity between 1903 and 1983 as industrial agriculture prioritized uniform, hybrid varieties.
While Seed Savers Exchange and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange have years of experience and collections to lean on, both are firm believers that anyone can run a successful swap where they live. And, in fact, people do: Today, there are hundreds to thousands of swaps each winter and spring across the United States, many of which began as small community events.
Great plant and seed swaps rely on (and build) connections to other people. “Seed swaps are such a special way to join in community with other gardeners, farmers, and fellow seed savers,” Flatgard said.
Here’s what it takes to start one in your community.
A display of seeds from Glenn Teves, a seed grower and breeder from Hawaii, at an Organic Seed Growers swap. (Photo courtesy of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange)
Gather the Seeds
Wallace encourages organizers to reach out to local seed companies, seed-saving groups, or gardening groups in the fall or early winter. These groups can also sometimes send a speaker to give a presentation about the basics of seed saving. “I like to arrange it so that someone at the beginning talks a bit about seed saving and how it can give you personal independence and the possibility of carrying family heirlooms into the future,” Wallace said.
Southern Exposure’s flagship tomato, Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter, is one of those important family heirlooms that has been preserved for future generations. M.C. Byles (Radiator Charlie) bred the tomato variety in the 1930s and sold seedlings in the 1940s to pay off his mortgage.
To ensure you have enough seeds and plants at your event, Aird encourages organizers to reach out to small seed companies or local nurseries for a donation. Some communities may also have garden programs that could help.
Wallace noted that they sometimes end up with extra plants and seeds, especially if the swap has received a large donation. In that case, she recommends encouraging participants to take extras, particularly if they’re representing a community garden or other group. At the end, she donates any extra to community gardens or local sustainable agriculture nonprofits.
Find the Site
Community organizations may also be able to help you find a site for your swap. Working with Seed Savers, Aird and Flatgard use space at large organizations like the Vesterheim Museum or Seed Savers Heritage Farm, also in Decorah.
They partner with PBS Wisconsin on a seed swap in Madison, Wisconsin as well. For smaller swaps, they recommend you reach out to organizations in your community—libraries, churches, farmers’ markets, food co-ops, master gardener groups, community gardens, and other agricultural groups.
You can also find helpful resources for seed saving and setting up a swap on the Southern Exposure and Seed Savers websites as well as in books like Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth and Seedswap: The Gardener’s Guide to Saving and Swapping Seeds by Josie Jeffery.
Setting and Sharing Guidelines
Seed and plant swaps can vary widely, but it’s important for participants to know what to expect. Some swaps encourage swappers to sit next to their plants and seeds, sharing information and monitoring what’s taken. Other swaps are less formal, with everything spread on tables for participants to choose what they want.
While there are many ways to set up a swap, Seed Savers Exchange recommends setting clear guidelines for the types of seeds and plants participants may bring. For example, at their swaps, they encourage folks to bring open-pollinated seeds, locally saved seeds, excess purchased seeds, and excess seeds donated by a seed company.
They ask participants not to bring any seeds and plants that are illegal in the U.S. or their state, as well as genetically engineered plants, F1 hybrids, poisonous, noxious, or controlled seeds and plants, patented seeds, or unknown seeds from volunteer plants.
Ira Wallace of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange shells Blue Clarage corn, a vibrant and flavorful heirloom variety from Ohio. (Photo courtesy of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange)
Common in seed catalogs, F1 hybrids are the first-generation cross from two distinct varieties, and while they may produce well in your garden, they won’t produce consistent offspring the following year. Organizers can find lists of noxious or controlled plants with the state or federal government; they include non-native plants like kudzu and purple loosestrife, which grow aggressively and displace native species.
Whatever rules you decide on, be sure to share your guidelines on your promotional materials and in person after participants arrive.
Wallace also suggested planning to have extra labeling supplies and examples of well-labeled seeds and plants; that way, people can take a moment to label their items if they haven’t yet.
“For people I know are coming, I like to send them a little sheet in advance about how to label their seeds,” Wallace said.
For most varieties, about 25 seeds in each packet is a good place to start. Packets can be Ziploc bags or envelopes labeled with the variety name, date grown, the grower’s information and location, and any additional information participants may have. For plants, participants can label the pot or provide a small card or sheet to go with each plant.
Swaps that welcome participants of all skill levels will ensure that seed saving and gardening are passed on to the next generation.
Set a Date and Promote Your Event
After you have a location and partners, it’s time to set a date and promote your event. Getting the word out at least a month in advance will encourage participation. Winter swaps are great for trading seeds like peppers and tomatoes, which need to be started early. Spring swaps are better for participants to trade plants that may need to be transplanted right away.
If you’ve found good community partners, work with them and their social media networks to help get the word out. You can also try posting to community Facebook pages or local gardening groups.
Good old-fashioned flyers are still a viable way to advertise. Ask to post notices in your community at places like food co-ops and health food stores, community gardens, local libraries, and community bulletin boards. Some of these organizations may be willing to share your event on their social media as well.
The Seed Savers Exchange gathering at the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, on National Seed Swap Day. (Photo courtesy of Seed Savers Exchange)
Hosting Your Swap
Especially if your swap includes a beginning presentation or educational element, set up the space to allow room for that. Folks not attending the presentation can then move around the tables comfortably as they check out the seeds and plants and chat with other seed savers.
Consider making space for snacks and drinks, too. A tempting spread encourages participants to relax and connect over food. A potluck-style snack table is a budget-friendly option.
Stay Connected
Organizing a seed swap is a great start, but you’ll need to stay connected to build a thriving plant community. Hosting an annual swap at the same place that people can count on will help encourage people to save seeds and attend.
Aird and Flatgard smiled when talking about the young family who’d scooped up the cowpeas.
“Lo and behold, we saw them again in August when we had another swap,” Aird said. “They had grown the cowpeas, saved the seeds, and brought them to share with other gardeners. It was a full-circle moment. This is the whole point of us sharing the seeds: So people can grow them out, enjoy them, and then bring the extras to share.”
The post How to Start a Seed and Plant Swap appeared first on Civil Eats.
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This story was originally posted by Alaska Beacon.
Yereth Rosen
Alaska Beacon
Four months after the remnants of a tropical typhoon wrecked communities in Western Alaska, hundreds of people who were displaced are considering abandoning their village altogether.
Tribal members from Kipnuk, a community of about 700 that was among the hardest hit, are now preparing for a possible complete relocation. Working in temporary quarters in downtown Anchorage, tribal workers spent weeks manning phones and computers to try to collect votes about relocation options from all the adults among Kipnuk’s enrolled tribal residents.
The tribal leaders have picked out two potential relocation sites, both at least 40 feet above sea level, and are open to other suggestions. By Friday, they had collected all the votes, and are now tallying the results to determine what the consensus is.
The tribal vote is intended to be a final decision, said Rayna Paul, environmental director for the Native Village of Kipnuk, the tribal government.
“Oh my gosh, we’re not going back,” Paul said in an interview in her temporary office in Anchorage.
The storms that came with the remnants of Typhoon Halong comprised one of the state’s most devastating natural disasters in recent decades, and it spurred what was the biggest air evacuation in at least half a century, with about 1,600 people moved by military aircraft from the storm-stricken region.
Paul and tribal officials from Kwigillingok, another heavily damaged village, described the ravages during a panel discussion at the Alaska Forum on the Environment earlier this month.
Impacts included houses that were pushed off their foundations and sent afloat; graves washed away; vital stockpiles of fish, berries and other wild foods harvested over the past year were ruined. Halong-related flooding and winds inundated the region with new risks: spilled heating oil, diesel, sewage and other noxious and hazardous substances.
The extent of the damage was shocking, Dustin Evon, Kwigillingok’s tribal resilience coordinator, said at the forum.
“I think we all did not expect the storm to be this catastrophic until houses started floating away and people started calling,” he said.
The storm’s total toll has yet to be calculated, as assessments could not be completed before winter set in, but Bryan Fisher, director of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, put the tab at $125 million as of the start of February.
Food-security and cultural losses
The damage goes beyond dollars, and they added to damages already underway years before Halong became the latest in a series of powerful recent storms.
Paul said changes have been especially noticeable since ex-Typhoon Merbok hit the same region in 2022. The land and waters around Kipnuk have lost many of the qualities that supported generations of Yup’ik residents.
Blackberries and crowberries have disappeared, possibly because of saltwater inundating the sinking tundra, she said. Blackfish, a freshwater species, are “nowhere to be found,” she said. Tomcod have also been scarce. Other species appear to have suffered, she said; there were reports prior to Halong of several dead white foxes.
Successive storms have pushed saltwater inland, contaminating drinking water and hastening the permafrost thaw that was already underway beneath the tundra’s surface because of climate change.
If residents decide to leave, the biggest challenge may be securing the money to move the village. There is no single agency in charge of village relocation, a problem cited by organizations like the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium as a hindrance to progress.
However, the concept of moving villages to escape hazards has plenty of historic precedent in Alaska.
In the most recent case, the village of Newtok, on the fast-eroding banks of the Ninglick River, moved to a more secure inland site called Mertarvik. Conducted amid funding uncertainties and bedeviled by logistical problems, the move took decades.
Historic moves that involve less infrastructure have been simpler.
For example, Chevak, a coastal village about 100 miles north of Kipnuk that also sustained damage from the storm, is itself a relocated site. The current village was established in the mid-20th century, a switch from the site now known as Old Chevak, which was considered to be too prone to floods.
Kipnuk’s current site is not where the original settlement was located. An earlier site was used at least seasonally before the current site was recognized in 1922 by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, according to Alaska records. The older site had been rejected by the federal government as place for a permanent village because it lacked barge access, Paul said. The government built a school, part of a pattern that tied Indigenous Alaskans who previously moved around by season to permanent communities.
The old Kipnuk site is now one of the two candidate relocation sites that the tribal government has selected for consideration. Both are located at least 40 feet above sea level, Paul said.
There are also cases in Alaska history where the federal government moved fairly quickly to relocate disaster-stricken communities. It took about three years after the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 to completely rebuild the city of Valdez in a different and more stable spot.
Rebuilding versus relocating
If Kipnuk residents decide to stay rather than go, a full return to the current village site will require a comprehensive rebuild that would take several years, officials say.
Fisher, of the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, broached that subject in the Alaska Forum on the Environment presentation earlier this month.
Rebuilding would start with new mapping and new data about how far flood waters will spread, he said.
“The land has completely changed from what it looked like before the storm in October,” he said. “So we have to reassess our understanding of what the water can do now that the land is completely different, both under people’s homes or where their homes were, and kind of community-wide,” he said.
Fisher noted that structures raised above the tundra on stilts fared better in the storm, indicating that those features might be incorporated into any new or repaired buildings.
Evon had first-hand experience with the benefit of stilts. While he was helping carry out the emergency response at the Kwigillingok school, one of the few village structures on stilts, his own home floated away.
Sheryl Musgrove, director of the Alaska Climate Justice Program at the Alaska Institute for Justice, is skeptical of that plan.
If the floodwaters were eight feet deep, that would suggest that buildings need to be 10 feet aboveground, said Musgrove, who is helping Kipnuk’s tribal government and sharing its Anchorage office space for now.
“I don’t know how realistic it is,” she said. Engineers have said the ground has changed and pilings may have to be driven down 100 feet, she added. “Is that realistic, having a 100-foot piling for each home?” she asked.
To Paul, there’s no point in putting that investment in the same place instead of a new and safer spot.
“They’re trying to rebuild when we’re going to be hit by another extreme weather event,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
The expectation of more storms creating this type of damage is justified, according to experts from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Strong fall storms in the Bering Sea, including ex-typhoons, are nothing new, said Rick Thoman, a scientist with UAF’s Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness.
What is different now is the repeated occurrence of such storms causing severe damage in populated areas of Western Alaska’s mainland, Thoman said in a presentation at the Alaska Forum on the Environment.
Ex-Typhoon Halong was especially unusual in the path that it took: shooting past St. Lawrence Island in the northern Bering Sea to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, he said.
“This is only the second storm of this intensity to make that, to shoot that gap in the autumn, since 1950,” he said. “That is an extremely rare track for a storm of this intensity in the fall.”
An ex-typhoon is a particular meteorological event, Thoman said. A typhoon is a warm-water storm in a relatively confined geographic space; an ex-typhoon sends winds horizontally over vaster distances, he said. “The area covered by strong winds expands greatly,” he said. And at high latitudes, ex-typhoons become extremely powerful, he said.
Since 1970 more than 60 ex-typhoons have reached Alaska, but more than half of them were limited to the western and central Aleutians, he said. Some reached the Bristol Bay and Alaska Peninsula region, and a few reached the Gulf of Alaska.
But since the 1970s, there have been only four ex-typhoons that moved into the Arctic after sweeping through the Northern Bering Sea coast: Carlo in 1996, Merbok in 2022, Ampil in 2024 and Halong last October.
Ampil did not produce flooding in Alaska, but it did cause record-high summer winds, Thoman said. And both Merbok and Halong were extremely destructive and expensive disasters fueled by unusually warm waters in the tropical Pacific.
Three powerful ex-typhoon storms hitting Western Alaska’s mainland in the last four years is notable, Thoman said at the forum.
“One, twice, coincidence. Three? OK, now we’ve got an issue, right?” he said at the forum.
For the hundreds of displaced residents like Paul, relocation is a necessity, even if it is just temporary.
She is getting used to apartment life inacca a three-story building in East Anchorage, with Chugach Mountain views that are unlike anything on the horizon of the tundra where Kipnuk is situated. She is also trying to adjust to the urban pace of life.
“It’s something different,” she said. “Seems like people don’t sleep.” But she said there have been some positive aspects of the move.
Her nephews are attending Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School and report that even though the school is much bigger than what they are used to — one of the biggest high schools in the state — the environment has been welcoming, Paul said. Some of the evacuated kids are even in a combined Kipnuk-Kwigillingok basketball team, she said.
And Paul is heartened by the sight of ducks flying around Anchorage. “When I see ducks, l’m like, ‘Woo-hoo! Soup,’” she said with a laugh.
She has no idea how long she will be in Anchorage — or even the location of her house, which was one of those in Kipnuk that floated away.
“I don’t have a house to go back to, you know. So very uncertain,” she said.
The post After remnants of typhoon wrecked their home, Alaska villagers consider possible move appeared first on ICT.
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Last Updated on February 25, 2026 From the boreal forests of northern Alberta to the deserts of West Texas, Indigenous peoples are pushing back against a wave of data center proposals across Turtle Island, arguing that the booming digital-infrastructure build-out threatens sacred lands, water resources, traditional knowledge and treaty rights. In northern Alberta, the Sturgeon […]
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