Mindy - I would have emailed you this but you don't have email posted so before you hear from Admin I suggest you see Item 6 - Guidelines under Terms of Use. Specifically the prohibition about soliciting donations.

This would be a topic for you to explore locally as that would be the source of your donations.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Terms of Use

I think i rather clearly stated that i am not asking for donations. Rather seeking to get a picture of the number of home gardeners who would be into something like this. Im always rather shocked by how little people participate in community projects. But id think something like giving your extra seeds would be simple enough. BUT for all i know people ddont want to give them up because they want they to use them next year?....maybe its not that clear...but that was not my intention.

I read item 6. Thank you dave. I have to admit ive never read through them...

A lot of seeds you can get for free just by going to the grocery store.

Peppers of all varities will have viable seeds as long as they aren't green. Cook the pepper, put it in a salad, save the seeds. They'll grow just fine.

Many grain and beans (like lentils) that you can buy dried and bagged will sprout very easily. A $2 bag of lentils will get you thousands of seeds that will all sprout in a couple of days.

Most non-plastic bagged potatoes will sprout and grow, you can get upwards of a half dozen plants out of a single potato if you're lucky.

I've even seen stories of people buying those tomatoes still on a vine and getting the vine to root after they picked the tomatoes off it.

You can start a pretty darned good food garden out of literally the trash you have left over preparing dinner.

Just start talking to gardeners in your area. I decided to garden on a whim and started asking people with gardens to contribute to my cause, gardening for a family of 7, and had great donations of seeds, plants, and advice. I even had a couple of people come over to help.

Thanks. Common sense that escaped me edymnion!! Hadnt occured to me to save seed from store bought produce.

Store bought produce doesn't grow true to seed. If you want to get some free seeds go over to the Gardenweb seed exchange and tell them about your project and tell them that you are a newbie if you have never traded seeds on there. Also, check out The Garden Hoard website for a six pack of free seeds every month for only a SASE!I think people may not give because they haven't gotten told the story. Maybe you have a paper or even better a free paper in your area that would publish a story for free about your cause?

Don't worry about "growing true", its an overhyped old wive's tale, IMO.

You know what "true to type" means? It means "clone". Its true, grocery store fruit is usually open pollinated. Which yes, it does mean there is a small chance that it could be cross-pollinated, but several factors are in your favor.

1) Virtually no farmer that is selling to large chain stores is growing a half acre of anything. So odds are your open pollinated pepper was in the middle of a field a dozen acres across of the exact same type of pepper.

2) Most of the food crops you see on the dinner table that don't come from trees are mostly self pollinating. So the odds are first that it pollinated itself, meaning the seed is pure. If that fails, odds are then that it was pollinated by the same type of plant right next to it, which will also breed true.

3) Even if by some fluke you do get a weird hybrid, odds are the differences will either be unnoticeable to the untrained eye, or will be minor enough that someone growing them as a food product for themselves won't care. After all, if your red tomato accidentally crossbred with a yellow tomato from two fields over, the offspring are still going to be tomatoes. They don't turn into inedible frankenfruit, you just might wind up with an odd color.

Overall, if it will grow from a supermarket seed at all, then odds are it will come out just fine.

You can use store bought potatoes and garlic but make sure it's organic. The conventional kind has a chemical sprayed on it to inhibit growth (keep it from sprouting).

melikeeatplants, this is the second time today that I've seen someone claim that conventional potatoes from the store won't sprout...but I wish someone would explain that to the potatoes in my cupboard. I was seriously considering cutting them up and using them like seed potatoes this year, because the sprouts are vigorous.

To me it sounds like a logistical nightmare. While I may share packets of seeds with friends often, people donating seeds from opened packets on the scale you are talking about does not seem advisable, unless, those same people are tending assigned areas with their seeds. I think that it would be much more practical to have people sponsor seed packets, or sponsor a garden bed or something along those lines. You may be able to get big box stores to donate seedlings or local nurseries as well.

Good luck in your endeavors.

leira - it isn't that they won't sprout but that the spray delays sprouting to increase storage times, often to the point that the potato is already shriveled and/or dry by the time it starts to sprout and so is of little/no use of will give minimal production.

If you have store-bought potatoes that have sprouted and are still 1/2 way healthy looking and you want to use them, fine do so. They just aren't considered the best seed potato because of the effect of the sprays.

Dave

I didn't say they won't sprout, I said the sprays "inhibit" it. anyway, what digdirt said.....

I've used regular potatoes and organic potatoes in acitvities with elementary children, and the organic sprout more quickly.