Video Observer: Seed Library Empowers Community with Free Seed Distribution

On the first Saturday of every month, the Carriage House, a barn-shaped museum located behind a two-story Victorian house in Anaheim’s Founders’ Park, opens its doors from 9 am to noon to offer free seeds (ranging from California Natives to heirloom fruits and vegetables) for the public. This program is organized by the Anaheim Public Library’s Heritage Center and allows visitors to obtain seed packets (free) from alphabetized drawers in an antiquated miniature cabinet that makes up the Founders’ Park Seed Library.

I first saw a flyer about this program when I visited Muzeo Museum last fall, but on the first Saturday of February 2026, I had a chance to interview Anaheim Heritage Center Senior Librarian Nichole Grimes about how the seed library began and how it benefits the community.

It is worth noting that the librarians within the Anaheim Public Library’s Heritage Services oversee the historic Mother Colony House, the 1896  Woelke-Stoffel House, and the Carriage House at Founders’ Park, located at 400 North West Street. The Carriage House was added to the Founders’ Park property in 2011 and it is home to a museum containing agricultural artifacts from Anaheim’s past. It includes lots of displays discussing the many civic improvements made as Anaheim evolved from a tiny wine colony into the city it is today.

Inside the Carriage House, next to the east doorway, there is a small cabinet with drawers sitting on a table with a sign marked “Founders’ Park Seed Library” placed above it. Each drawer is decorated with floral wallpaper and has a label by its handle. The seed library sign encourages visitors to open the drawers to see what’s inside. However, before opening any of them, it is recommended that visitors fill out a sign-in sheet, where they can leave their name, date, zip code, and the number of seed packets they will be taking or have already taken.

“The Seed Library is a program where folks can come in and take up to six seed packets a month at our Open House program here in the Carriage House,” said Grimes. “The Seed Library started in 2023. We had a card catalog, and I realized that it would be a good opportunity to set this up and get it going. So, it’s been operating about once a month since that time.”

She said, “In this building, we talk about the different historical folks who have lived in Anaheim and who’ve made it what we recognize it today. We usually start with our Native American tribes: the Tongva is the one from this area. We move forward through our Rancho history and into the founding of the Anaheim colony itself, and then we kind of walk through the development of the city and all of its different phases until we bring it to the present.”

A mano y metate, like the ones the Tongva used to grind acorns, was found in a backyard in Anaheim and is now on display in the museum, which also has a steam crusher from when Anaheim was still a wine colony. It’s a horizontal, steam-powered wine press that used wooden planks and a square base to exert pressure on grape skins. A smudge pot from the city’s citrus era also stands in the Carriage House.  Close to the doors where the seed library is located, I spotted the first mail delivery wagon in Anaheim, which was built by a man named Frank Eastman around 1900. As a mail carrier, Frank delivered packages along one of three 25-mile routes, and since he was unable to finish the long routes on foot, he built his own horse-drawn carriage, which can still be seen today.

According to Grimes, the park’s library has two main types of seeds: heirloom fruit and vegetable seeds, and California Native seeds. She explained that they represent the plants that were here as well as the plants that folks still grow in their gardens today.

She said, “The seeds come from a wide variety of sources; that’s one of the fun parts about it for me. A lot of seed companies will have a donation program for places like libraries and schools to give them some of the seed packets that they didn’t sell the previous year; they’re still totally viable to grow. But I’ve been really lucky with the community support we have here. Folks will donate seeds that they’ve grown and preserved themselves. We’ve also been really lucky that there have been some institutions throughout the County that are able to help support us. Centennial Farm at the OC Fair has been a big supporter, as well as the Heritage Museum of Orange County in Santa Ana.”

According to Grimes, cucumbers and “a lot of plants that you might think of in a kitchen garden style flourish around this time” in late winter or early spring. I asked her if different seeds are offered seasonally and she explained, “Just this morning, I swapped out one drawer, because I had a large stock of cucumber seeds of all things, but now is the time, so yeah, I’ll swap them out to make the library seasonally appropriate. So, leafy greens and lettuces are doing great.”

For Grimes, the most fulfilling part of taking care of the seed library is talking to patrons who come in because most people don’t know that it exists. “We’re still trying to get the word out. Some people are really excited to take part in a gardening program, and actually learn how it connects to our history,” she said.

When asked how the open house program and seed library have helped the community, Grimes responded, “Our main focus here at Founders’ Park is preserving our history and making that accessible to the public, but historic sites flourish when folks feel it’s a creative and welcoming community space, and so the seed library kind of ties into that. It’s something they can take part in, take with them, engage with and use to think about our agricultural history.”
​Anaheim’s Founders’ Park Seed Library in the Carriage House is free and open on the first Saturday of every month from 9 am to noon, so the next date the seed library will be available is Saturday, March 7, 2026.

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