Organisations

Rare Breed Organisations

Herdwick Sheep Breeders Association
Focusing on all aspects of breeding and raising Herdwick sheep

Rare Breeds Survival Trust
Dedicated to saving Britain's rare livestock breeds.

Plant heritage organisations

Heritage Seed Library
Garden Organic's Heritage Seed Library helps to conserve and reintroduce heritage varieties of vegetables and flowers.

Plant Heritage
The National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens

Scotland’s New Heritage Orchard

Elmwood College, in partnership with The Forestry Commission have recently unveiled plans for a new orchard.

Elmwood and The Forestry Commission identified the need for a "Model Orchard" to provide education and training in Orchard planting and management techniques. The Forestry Commison provided the initial set up costs and Elmwood hope to secure further funding from Scottish Executive Agriculture Department in due course.

The Orchard area is located on The Elmwood College Farm and has a total area of 0.73 hectares. It is fully organic and Soil Association certified and will be developed over three years. The first planting is complete and comprises 50 trees split between cider apples and desert apples. In addition a blackthorn/sloe hedge will surround the orchard, which was chosen for its biodiversity as well as the bumper crop of ‘Sloe's,’ which are expected to appear in a few years time. The perimeter of the Orchard is protected with a Deer/Rabbit proof fence.

Wayne Roberts, Section Leader for Greenkeeping & Horticulture, said, “The development of the orchard as a teaching resource for use by college students and the wider community is a fantastic opportunity to ensure that we can help to identify and preserve heritage varieties and develop new rootstocks for the future. As Scotland’s Centre for Production Horticulture, we can ensure that skills and knowledge associated with both fruit production and management help to support the national economy and assist to develop employability in the sector. The support and encouragement that we have received from partners and the industry have helped to identify that there is a strong need for this area of horticulture and we will ensure that we support industry as best we can.”

In the area not planted this year, Agriculture students at the College are about to sow a clover rich cover crop to increase the fertility of that portion for future year planting. The first fruit is expected in the Autumn of 2012, with major harvest from the Autumn of 2013. All trees have been chosen to be ripening into the College’s Autumn term to ensure the students are involved in the harvest.

More information

Elmwood College website

Forestry Commission - Scotland

Carlin Peas

The Carlin pea is a traditional drying pea which seems to date way back in the English medieval monasteries and was certainly used in Elizabethan times.

Carlins are associated with the North and Especially North East of England where they often eaten on Passion Sunday.  Legend has it, that they saved many Northumbrians from starvation during the Civil war of 1644.

Now classified as a heritage or Heirloom variety, Carlin or Maple Peas can still be obtained and grown from seed.

Planted and grown in much the same way as Sweet Peas, the plants can reach an average height of about six foot, bearing beautiful white and lilac flowers.

If given full sun and plenty of water, the crop quite prolifically.  The seeds can be used fresh or allowed to ripen and dried for storage.

Many heritage varieties of seed are not available for public sale due to licencing leglisaltion but these seeds are available to members of the Heritage Seed Library.

or from seed exchange websites such as Garden Passion.

Events

All around the UK there are events and shows dedicated to our heritage varieties and rare breeds.

We have put together a list of the events we are aware of but if you have an event or show and would like to be listed on this page, please complete the form at the bottom of this page.

April 2010

23rd April - 21st June - British Asparagus Festival
Featured by the Hairy Bikers and on The One Show, the British Asparagus festival in the Vale of Evesham, celebrating the growing, harvesting and eating of this sumptuous vegetable.

July 2010

31st July - 30th August - Pershore Plum Festival
A month of plum related events culminating in the Pershore Plum Fayre Day on August Bank Holiday Monday.

Old Varieties v New

Over the last three years we have been growing heritage vegetables as well as more modern varieties and whilst we have not been conducting a scientific experiment, the outcome is interesting.

We trialled heritage varieties of Tomato (San Marzano Di Lampadina) and French Bean (Blauhilde).

Both varieties were grown under the same conditions as the modern varieties; Tomato (Gardener's delight) & French bean (Pantheon)

Firstly the French beans - The heritage variety (Blauhilde) really did struggle, with generally weaker plants succumbing very easily to slug damage and mildew.

Out of the total crop sown, around 70% succeeded to seedling stage but only 25% of the plants made it to cropping stage of which crops were generally poor.

Tomato San Marzano Di Lampadina did very well as seedlings (probably due to the lovely warm spring).

They produced quite strong plants with a fair crop of medium sized fruits.  However, the time taken to ripening seemed to exceed the amount of sunlight hours available in the North of England and fruits struggled to ripen.

A batch of Green tomato chutney put them to good use.

We have also grown other old varieties of vegetable including brassicas and shallots and in general, the results have been much the same with plants struggling through the wet summer and producing less yield with a constant fight against disease.

Although heritage varieties are worth growing for their different flavours and textures, we found that we have had to nurse them to production stage with a great deal of loss.

Worth mentioning, is the simple fact that our Cumbrian summers over the last three years have been rubbish, to say the least.  Extremely wet, dark and with very little strong sunlight.

We are interested to hear what other growers of heritage vegetables have experienced around Britain and we certainly still advocate growing the older varieties, although we do suggest researching the varieties well to see if they will be suited to prevailing conditions.

Suppliers of old seed varieties

Here you will find a few commercial suppliers of old varieties of fruit, vegetables and flowers.

Thomas Etty, Somerset (heritage seedsman and bulb merchant) Tel: 01963 359202

Organic Gardening Catalogue, Surrey (organically grown, sundries, discount for Garden Organic and RHS members)

Edwin Tucker & Sons Ltd, Devon (seeds and seed potatoes) Tel: 01364 652233

Chiltern Seeds - Fresh seeds of around 4,500 species and varieties, many rare and unusual, and including almost 200 brand new items and more than 150 reintroductions for 2010. Tel: +44 (0) 1229 581137

If you would like to be listed then please let us know via the form below.

You may also want to be listed in our Keeptradelocal directory of local businesses

Heritage Seeds

A recent article by Garden Organic focuses on heritage seed and the need to preserve our gardening heritage.

In 1973 the Seed (National List of Varieties) Act was introduced.  Its main aim was to stop unethical selling of sub standard varieties.  All seed had to be tested and registered, a cost which could only be borne by the major seed producers.

However well intentioned this seemed to be, the result was to instantly make hundreds of varieties unavailable to the public.

Local climate

Varieties which is some cases had evolved in a certain region making them ideal for the local climate.

Unlike commercial varieties, most of the heritage seeds produced crops at different times, avoiding gluts and giving a much longer harvest, the diversity in varieties giving a greater range of flavours, textures and colours.

The sale of unregistered seed is illegal and many heritage varieties cannot be registered due to the small quantities of seed existing.

Human nature being what it is, a canny solution was quickly seized upon.

The Heritage Seed Library was the first response.

It doesn't sell unregistered seed: it gives it away to members, who pay an annual subscription.

More recently, organisations such as Vida Verde, Kokopelli, and Beans and Herbs have begun operating in a similar way.

Heritage seed library

They are not museums; they constantly source and trial varieties from all over the world and some carry out their own breeding.

Members also save their own seed to swap with other members, in a heartening return to traditional distribution methods and so a dynamic, evolving and ever-growing library of gardeners' varieties is being maintained.

Many have been brought back from the brink of extinction, and are now grown across the country.

The wider the network, the safer the varieties are, and anyone with a tiny veg patch can join in.

View full article and details of where to source these exciting varieties.

More information

We have listed some suppliers of heritage seeds here >>
Maybe you know of others then please let us know via the contact us form.