Restore Altadena: Seeds for Healing

Some of you may know that most of my free time over the last few years has gone to two projects:

1. The creation of an organization called Altadena Seed Library, a network of little free libraries across LA where I distribute free seeds and seed education to combat shade inequity and increase food sovereignty and access to green spaces.

2. A restoration project at Eaton Canyon that involved the establishment of a seed bank to ensure plant populations could be reseeded after a major climatic event like a wildfire, as well as a comprehensive Seed Needs Assessment Plan that laid the groundwork to restore degraded stands within the canyon.

So much of my life has come to revolve around my relationship to this particular land - to protecting and restoring it. This fire has made me feel an enormous sense of failure on a lot of levels - how we collectively have abused the earth, but also on a personal level, how I failed to establish the seed banks in time. had I secured grant funding last year, or dedicated more time, what plant lineages might we be able to reseed from Eaton Canyon? Although I am grappling with this sense of failure, I had led a series of seed workshops in the fall, including some small collections in the canyon. The seed I do have has been stored in my personal greenhouse.

When we saw the orange glow from our backyard and heard that it was Eaton Canyon on fire, I packed the seeds before I packed any of my own belongings.

One of the things I love so much about Altadena is the residents’ commitment to stewarding the land. Not only were hundreds of native yards burned, community gardens where farmers had been growing cultural crops for generations were also lost. I’m thinking of the bees who don’t have anything here to pollinate, the coyotes and deer that don’t have shelter, the humans who don’t have shade now, and whose air quality will be degraded for years without the plants filtering it for them.

tl:dr, this is a call for seeds. if you know anyone who can donate seeds, or if you have some yourself, please let me know so that we can reseed altadena together. i can help distribute and educate via Altadena Seed Library alongside any organizations that want to partner with me on this.