Distributing Vegetable Seeds for Community Service Work

Do you or your local community service group have a garden project? Do you raise fresh vegetables for your local Food Pantry? Do you administer a Community Garden? Work with a 4-H group, or Youth Group Garden Program? Would you like to be able to give vegetable seeds to low-income families to grow their own vegetables? In what other ways could you or would you be able to put vegetable seeds to constructive use in community service? Through a generous donation from a major distributor of garden seeds, Lake Valley Seeds of Boulder, Colorado, we are able to supply you with high-quality vegetable seeds of many varieties. We are very grateful for their generosity in addressing the issue of Hunger at the grass-roots level here in Oregon. Every local Grange in Oregon has, or will have, access to these donated vegetable seeds, and can distribute them in their local area as is needful. In 2008, Winona Grange initiated a local effort to raise fresh vegetables, enlisting members and others to grow an extra row, or a whole garden, or to co-op with others at a local Century Farm. All the produce is going to our local Food Pantry. As a result, we have seen renewed enthusiasm for community service, an increased community awareness of the Grange, more active participation at our monthly meetings, and some new members, too. One of the Grange's original mandates was to provide seeds, supplies and equipment to farmers at reasonable prices, at a time in our history when merchants wanted to sell to them at retail, and then buy their produce below wholesale. We in the Granges of Oregon find ourselves returning to our roots in being able to enable others in needful community service programs all across the state. If you represent an Oregon Grange wanting to participate in seed distribution for community service, please contact us. We are compiling a list of participating Oregon Granges, and will eventually post it on this page. Plant some seeds; grow some local community benefits. If you represent a local Community Service Organization desiring vegetable seeds for your Garden Project, you have a few options. You may contact your local Grange, and ask if they are, or could be persuaded to be, participating in the Seed Distribution Program. You can also contact us at Winona Grange #271 directly. We will attempt to find a Grange near you in the program. Later on, you may be able to find a participating Grange in your area from the list mentioned above. In the absence of a local participating Grange, you may write us on your organization's letterhead, with a request for Seeds. Contact us about Seeds We are making the seeds available in assortments of two sizes, Large and Small, Large being whatever fits into a Priority Mail Flat Rate Box. You will find a table farther down this page with the makeup of the assortments. At the bottom of the page, you will find the costs and some other choices to make. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments you may have. Assortments will be labeled as"Donated Seeds, Not for Resale" and "Distributed by the Grange." We are also able to furnish "Your Grange" labels for identifying "your" assortment as being distributed by "Your Grange." Seed packets will be available at no cost, except for the cost of shipping via the US Mail. Priority Mail will be used, as the Post Office supplies the boxes at no cost. Our timeline: We are in the process of tallying and assorting seed packets now (late Summer). We expect to contact all the individual Oregon Granges this Fall, encouraging them all to sign up, and to put their orders in this Winter. Seed assortments will be available for shipping shortly after the first of the year, on into the Spring.

Typical Seed Assortments

Seed Group Packets per Large Assortment Packets per Small Assortment Major Varieties, in larger quantities Other Varieties, smaller quantities       You will receive some of these: You may also get some of these: Tomatoes 20 10 Big Beef, Mortgage Lifter, ACE55vf, Amana Orange, Better Boy, Roma. Yellow Pear, Tumbler Red Cherry, Lemon Boy, Beefsteak, Celebrity Hybrid, Brandywine Red, Supersweet 100, Bonnie Best, Tomatillo Husk Tomato, San Marzano. Sweet Corn 22 11 Peaches & Cream, Golden Jubilee, Precious Gem. Sugar Pearl Hybrid, Kandy Korn, Silver Queen, Indian Corn. Peas 12 6 Frosty, Little Marvel. Sugar Daddy, Snow Peas, Oregon Sugar Pod II, Dwarf Grey Sugar, Sugar Snap, Broad Wndsor, California #5 Cowpeas.  Cabbage 16 8 Copenhagen Market, Red Acre, Early Flat Dutch. Michihilli. Carrots 10 5 Danvers Half Long No others available this year. Salad Greens 50 25 Georgia Southern Collards, Florida Broadleaf Mustard, Dwarf Blue Kale, Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce. Corn Salad, Marielle Four Seasons, Mesclun, Spicy Salad Mix, Parris Island Romaine, Bibb Lettuce, Iceburg Lettuce, Red Sails Lettuce, Buttercrunch, Salad Bowl, Lollo Rossa,  Mizuma & Tendergreen (mustards), Red Rhubard (& Bright Lights) Swiss Chard, Broccoli Raab, Early White (& Early Purple) Vienna Kohlrabi, Bloomsdale Spinach, Baby Bok Choy, Pak Choy, Waltham 29 Broccoli, Utah Celery, Fordhook Swiss Chard, Olympia Spinach, Batavian Full Heart Endive. Squash 25 12 Table Queen Acorn, Waltham Butternut, Jumbo Pink Banana, Blue Hubbard, Sweet Meat. Yellow Straightneck, Yellow Crookneck, Black Beauty, Green Patty Pan, Golden Scalloped, Garden Spineless, Buttercup. Cucumbers 12 6 Straight Eight Garden Sweet Hybrid, Homemade Pickles, Tasty Green, Sweet Slice Hybrid, Spacemaster, Marketmore 76. Beans 6 3 Blue Lake 274 Bush Beans, Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans. Tendergreen, Contender, Royal Burgundy, Landreth Stringless, Top Crop, and Pencil Pod Black Wax Bush Beans. Blue Lake FMI and Scarlet Emperor Pole Beans. Henderson's Baby Lima, Fordhook 242 Bush lima, and Edamame Soybeans.  Melons, Pumpkins 10 5 Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin, Sugar Baby Watermelon, Hale's Best Jumbo Cantalope. Minnesota Midget, Honeydew, Charantais and Hearts of Gold Cantalopes. Crimson Sweet and Allsweet Watermelons. Bitter Melon. Big Max, Atlantic Giant, Connecticut Field, Cinderella, and New England Pie Pumpkins. Peppers 10 5 Anaheim Long Red, California Wonder. Fresno Chili, Jamaican Hot, Sandia A, Thai Dragon, Espanola Improved, Santa Fe, Serrano, Tabasco, Hungarian Wax, Cayenne Long Slim, Early Jalapeno, Senorita Hybrid, Habenero, Sweet Banana, Poblano Ranchero. Root Vegetables 6 3 Early Wonder Beets. Watermelon Radish, Cherry Bell, French Breakfast, Champion, White Icicle, and Minowase Radishes. Cioggia, Cylindra, Detroit Dark Red, Early Wonder, and Golden, Beets.Walla Walla, White Lisbon, Southport Red Globe, Spanish Utah, and Candy, Onions. Hollow Crown and Hamburg Rooted Parsnips. Shogoin and Purple Top White Globe Turnips. American Purple Top Rutabagas. Miscellaneous 5 3   Black Beauty and Long Purple Eggplant, Long Island Improved Brussel Sprouts, Spineless Okra, Red Burgundy Okra, Arugula, Giulio Radicchio. Herbs 12 6 Basil, Dill, Thyme, Catnip. Chives, Fennell, Lemon Balm, Anise, Oregano, Parsley, Cilantro, Sage, Mint, Lavender, Others. Total Packets 216 108     We have some varieties of Sweet Corn, Cucumbers, Beets, Lettuce and a few others, available in both large and small packets, so your assortment may contain a few large packets, especially if your order is an early order. We cannot fill orders for specific varieties, nor can we fill orders for only specific vegetables. A special opportunity exists for tomato seeds; even with the inclusion of 20 packets of tomato seeds per assortment, we have an additional 2600 packets of excess tomato seeds. We would like to make these available to a community service project or to a nursery not currently buying their tomato seeds from Lake Valley Seeds. If you know of a suitable situation, please contact us.

Costs, Shipping, Advertising

The cost for an assortment of seeds is to cover our shipping expenses. We don't have to buy boxes, as the Post Office supplies us with boxes for Priority Mail at no cost, delivered to our door. We are using a few packaging supplies: cardboard dividers, packing tape, and of course, the self-adhesive labels, including the shipping labels, and the ink to print them. Also, we are supplying some self-adhesive labels along with the assortments. There are multiple purposes for them. First, we are identifying the seeds as having been donated, and not for re-sale. This is important, because we are not in competition with the donor's retail dealers for their seed business.  Second, they should be good advertising, for the Grange in general, and for your Grange in particular. For no additional charge, we include 30 self-adhesive labels (one sheet of the generic labels) with every assortment. For enough labels to so identify nearly all individual packets (210 labels or 7 sheets), we charge a nominal extra fee, to cover the label and printing expenses. These can have your individual Grange name and number on them. This presents you with an additional opportunity to raise your community's awareness of your Grange. Putting the labels on the assortment, or on the individual seed packets, is a job for the volunteers at your Grange.      Generic Label "Your Grange" Label  Large Assortments are shipped in Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes; Small Assortments are shipped in Priority Mail boxes, based on weight and distance. The shipping costs for Small Assortments are for shipments within Oregon. We intend to fill all orders from Oregon Granges and Oregon Community Sevice organizations first; if we receive any requests from out-of-state Granges, we will consider them next, as our inventory permits. Out-of-state shipping costs will be higher for the Small Assortments.  Large Assortment Small Assortment   With 30 generic labels: $10.00  With 30 generic labels: $7.00  With 210 "Your Grange" labels: $14.20  With 90 "Your Grange" labels: $8.80 Shipping weight 5 lbs., 6 oz. Shipping weight 2 lbs., 15 oz. Contact us about Seeds