Growing Green Thumbs and Cultivating Our Community
Learning how to live with the natural world around you is just as much a part of literacy as learning how to use a computer or finding your next book. Here’s how we’re putting Racine back in touch with our landscape.
The Seed Library
Our seed library offers herb and vegetable seeds for you to take home. The seeds are free, but please take only what you will use so we can serve all of our visitors. No checkout is required on the seeds.
To take seeds home, stop by the Beyond Books collection on the second floor. Our seed library is the tall, mossy cabinet alongside the Beyond Books nook. Each seed comes packaged in a handy packet with quantity, growing advice, and information about what businesses and organizations provided the seeds.
The Racine Public Library Seed Library is offered in partnership with UW Extension to help our community eat and grow healthy food on any budget.
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Our 2023 Seed Collection
- Arugula
- Basil — Sweet
- Beets — Early wonder
- Broccoli — Green calabrese and marathon hybrid
- Cabbage — Golden acre
- Carrots — Scarlet nantes and tendersweet
- Cayenne pepper (organic)
- Cilantro (coriander)
- Collard — Georgia
- Corn — Ambrosia (bi color) and incredible
- Cucumber — Bush spaacemaster, homemade pickles, national pickling, spacemaster and straight 8
- Dill — Mammoth Long Island
- Eggplant — Purple long
- Endives — Green curled ruffec
- Green beans — Tendergreen
- Honeydew melon — Generic & orange fresh
- Kale — Red Russian
- Kohlrabi — White Vienna
- Lettuce — Buttercrunch and gourmet salad blend
- Mint — Spearmint
- Mustard — Broadleaf and curly
- Okra — Spineless
- Oregano — Greek
- Parsley – Plain leaf
- Peas — Little marvel and sugar ann
- Pepper — Sweet glow
- Poblano pepper — Heirloom (ancho)
- Pumpkin — Pie
- Radish — Cherry belle
- Rutabega — Purple top
- Spinach — Nobel giant
- Squash — Buttercup and winter acorn
- Tomato — Clementine (organic), red pearl (grape, organic), blush (yellow, organic), Martha Washington (organic), Wisconsin 55 (organic), Roma
- Turnip — Purple top
- Yellow beans — Golden wax
- Zucchini — Black beauty
Does the Racine Public Library accept seed donations?
We do not accept seed donations from our visitors. Unfortunately, it’s easy for homegrown seeds to transfer blight and other diseases to other gardens. We work with agricultural and gardening businesses to offer seeds that visitors can take home with the assurance that they will be safe for their gardens.
Where do the Racine Public Library’s seeds come from?
Check Out Wisconsin State Parks at Your Library
Beginning May 1, Racine Public Library cardholders can check out one-day state park passes (while supplies last). Stop by our first-floor staff desk to pick up your park pass kit, including maps, stickers, and accessibility information.
Each pass is valid for one car to visit any state park, forest or recreation area in Wisconsin. Parks are open 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day of the week. To plan your trip, read up on nearby trails you can visit (PDF). Be sure to double check if your location requires a pass before visiting – most trails and some parks do not.
If you enjoy the park pass check-out program and want to help us offer it again in the future — or if you want to be entered to win a year-long pass for 2024 — be sure to fill out this survey.
This partnership project is provided at no cost to participating libraries thanks to generous support from several program partners, including the Friends of Wisconsin State Parks and the Natural Resources Foundation.
Native Plant Garden
On Friday, June 24, 2022, we installed more than 600 native plants around our Library Drive book drops. Thank you to Root-Pike Watershed Initiative Network and all the volunteers who helped plant this garden.
This pollinator garden helps support a healthy ecosystem for birds, bees and butterflies. We purchased our plants from Taylor Creek Restoration Nursery with the support of our generous donors.