Seed Swap

-

Today I went to the Seed Swap organised by the Stroud Valleys Project. The aim of the swap was to allow people to bring any surplus seeds to exchange with others. I have accumulated a load of seed packets (unopened) which had arrived on the front of gardening magazines. This seed swap was ideal for me.

I took sixteen packets to the swap and I brought back four (see above).  I don't mind the imbalance, so long as the seeds get grown. I feel guilty about keeping seeds which will never be sown. Whilst sifting through the packets of seed, I got chatting to another swapper,  who turned out to be a teacher looking for seeds for the school garden. I hope she took some of mine.

Stroud is a centre for environmental activism. One of the sets of seeds I took was from the Stroud Community Seed Bank. They offer a limited range of seeds, all grown by a team of volunteer seed guardians, many of the seeds are heritage varieties and there are some you are unlikely to find anywhere else, such as the Thrupp parsnip (Thrupp is a village in Oxfordshire).

As far as I know, my home borough of Tewkesbury has no such organisation or indeed seed swap. Of course there will be the unofficial seed swaps that take place over mugs of tea at the local allotments, but nothing obvious. Maybe I should do something about it. The nice ladies of Stroud Community Seed Bank offered help and advice.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why

-
About a year ago I had a heart attack. Not a bad one, but enough to act as a warning. As is common the attack was followed by depression, partly as a side effect of one of the drugs and partly as a result of realising that my life had to change. But change how? My answer has been to start growing my own vegetables. My garden is hardly large, as I have a terraced house. The garden had flower beds filled with overgrown flowering shrubs. If I was to grow vegetables the shrubs would have to go, but I didn't have the money or the inclination to remove the flowerbeds, which curved around a central paved circle. I decided I would act within the existing garden layout. Most importantly I wanted the garden to still raise the spirit by being beautiful as well as edible. So I have been on the lookout for vegetables and planting layouts which please the eye. I was (and still am) a complete newbie to vegetable growing, but hey what the heck!  I said to my husband I would give it a go, see
Read more

Growing in the compost bin

-
Image
This is my courgette plant growing in the compost bin. It is a Czech variety called Wanda, which in addition to the large yellow flowers has sweet pale green fruit and beautiful variegated leaves. We can hardly keep up with plant's courgette production - my list of courgette recipes has had to expand a lot. It is hard to remember what this section of the garden looked like only a few months ago. In the corner of one of the beds I had erected a chicken-wire compost bin to cope with the green and brown material generated at the end of last year's harvest. My husband considered it ugly and he was right! The composting process had not finished by spring, so I removed the upright poles and covered the heap with a layer of multipurpose compost bought for 99p from Aldi. Into that I planted two courgette plants and boy did they love their unconventional bed. Soon the decorative courgette leaves had hidden everything. When the courgettes have finished fruiting, I will c
Read more

Foraging For No Work

-
Image
Having spent a lot of time in the Czech Republic, I love foraging for mushrooms. In fact I love foraging for fruit as well. There is something very special about reaping nature's bounty both in the garden and in the wider landscape, which I want to celebrate. So not only will foraged plants play an important part in my new diet, but also will feature in this blog.  My most recent foray took me to the Forest of Dean. It was a bit late for some of the popular mushrooms, which had been turned by the frost into black mush. But I came across a yellow larch boletus near a picnic spot. The Czechs call larch boletus "ne prace" or "no work", because once you find one, you will soon find more than you need. Sure enough, I looked around and soon found so many that supper was sorted - a delicious mushroom soup.  My mushroom soup recipe: First remove any pine needles, earth, slugs etc.  Then remove the sponge layer underneath. This can be eaten, but it goes t
Read more