Featured

Jul 18 2010

Seed search in Wales

Vegetable gardeners in Wales are being urged to preserve their heirloom varieties and make them more widely available.

The Dyfi Valley Seed Savers in Wales are looking to allotment and garden vegetable growers, to help trace all the home grown Welsh vegetable varieties they can find. They are especially interested in tomatoes resistant to blight, rocket that is slow to bolt and strong growing winter salads.

Many varieties have been handed down through the generations and are not available on the open market. These seeds are invaluable to local growers as they have adapted over the years to the climate and soil of the region.

Funding from a rural development agency has been granted to Dyfi Valley Seed Savers, to trial the vegetables they find at 10 selected sites throughout Powys.

Seeds discovered through the scheme will be redistributed through local seed swaps and also through the Heritage Seed Library run by Garden Organic in Coventry.

If you think you have something they might be interested in, The Dyfi Valley Seed Savers would love to hear from you.

Please get in touch with any information about the vegetable’s history, growing, taste and appearance characteristics, or contact them for more information by e.mailing; Claire@dyfivalleyseedsavers.org.uk

More information

Dyfi Valley Seed Savers

Heritage Seed Library

GLASU – Supporting a sustainable future for the people of Powys

Jul 01 2010

Carlin Pea in Flower

Earlier in the year we published an article about Carlin peas and Audrey from Lancashire decided she would have a go at growing some.

Shortly after Easter she planted a few Carlins which she had purchased from the grocer to eat.

The peas were planted in spring, just the same way as one would plant any other pea. The resultant 6 foot pea plants have just bloomed in the last week of June.

The Carlin pea flower is small and delicate, typical of the pea family, with a pale, almost translucent lilac upper (banner) petals and a rich wine or burgundy wings and keel.

The opposing leaves of the Carlin plant are almost heart shaped, unlike the oval shape of cultivated peas.

Deep veining is prominent in both the flower and the leaves.

Much like sweet peas, the Carlin pea does require something to grow up, as these plants in Lancashire have currently reached around 6 feet or more.

Audrey is going to keep us posted on their progress

Jun 14 2010

Preserving America’s Rose Heritage

Roses are often thought of as being quintessentially English but our friends in the USA also have cultivars dating back to the 1800’s which they are doing their utmost to trace and record.

Thought to be native of Asia, the rose could have been in cultivation over 5000 years ago and fossil records show that they may be some 35 million years old.

Now there are over 30,000 species of Rose all over the world and an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer shows how “Rose Rustlers” are scouring their countryside for signs of heritage roses in need of preservation and propagation.

Many heritage rose varieties bloom for only a few weeks of the year and often have the most powerful perfumes but these have given way to the modern varieties which have larger blooms and longer flowering periods and although some still have tremendous fragrance, they usually struggle to meet that of their ancestral varieties.

Along with human colonisation of the Unites States came many varieties of plant, including the rose and the Heritage Rose Foundation aims to find as many of these as possible.

The Heritage Rose Foundation is a US nonprofit organization established in 1986, devoted to the preservation of old roses and their website has a wealth of Information, many images and even a database of public rose gardens around the world.

Goals of the Heritage Rose Foundation

The collection of roses originating in the nineteenth century or earlier and roses with particular historic, educational, or genetic value (heritage roses).
Establishment of one or more gardens wherein heritage roses may be grown and displayed.
Advancement of research and investigations into heritage rose history, identification, genetics and breeding, propagation, diseases and pests, and suitability for landscape use.
Publishing and dissemination of information about heritage roses, including any and all research that emanates from the foundation.
Establishment and maintenance of a library of books, periodicals, research papers, manuscripts, catalogues, and other items to facilitate further research and investigation into heritage roses.
Encouraging public knowledge and perception of heritage roses through seminars, meetings, forums, panels, lectures, tours and exhibits.

More information

The World Federation of Rose Societies
The Heritage Rose Foundation
Heritage Roses in Australia
The Thomas Jefferson Centre for Historic Plants
The Royal National Rose Society
Canadian Rose Society

Mar 26 2010

North Ronaldsay Sheep

The Orkney, North Ronaldsay sheep is small sheep belonging to the northern short-tailed group of breeds. Bones of similar animals have been found at Skara Brae dating from the Bronze Age and a recent genotype survey organised by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, demonstrated that the breed is still virtually unchanged from the original type.

These fine boned animals are primitive, having evolved in a specialised seashore environment on their native island but they have adapted well to mainland management including conservation grazing.

Confined to the shoreline for the majority of the year to conserve the limited grazing on the island, these sheep feed mainly on seaweed.

The colour of the face and legs can vary and the fine wool can be any colour from white through to black. The head is small and the ewe’s face has a “dished” appearance. Rams develop a mane and beard of coarse hair.

The tail is short and thin. Both rams and ewes can have the distinctive horns which curl around and up, around their face. However, occasionally they curl around backwards, slowly puncturing the sheeps’ skull, so regular trimming is often done to avoid this.

The North Ronaldsay ewes which have a strong maternal instinct, lamb easily and frequently produce twins.

Maturing slowly and feeding off seaweed gives the meat a distinctive flavour, much prized by chefs.

North Ronaldsay Sheep Close up — Distinctive horns of the North Ronaldsay Sheep

According to the RBST, there are about 3700 sheep still on North Ronaldsay and about 807 over the rest of mainland Britain of which about 554 are adult breeding ewes plus 90 shearlings, putting them them on the endangered list.

The different coloured wools, for which they are mainly bred, are popular with hand spinners, felters, knitters and textile designers.

In more recent years colonies of the sheep have been established inland and on other islands to prevent the entire breed being wiped out through catastrophe (such as foot and mouth). A small number have also been exported as an exotic breed. It has been found that the sheep’s digestive system can readjust to a non-seaweed-based diet within two generations.

The images used on this site have been reproduced with the kind permission of Trevor Thompson, who’s travels took him to a working farm on the Islands of North Ronaldsay.

More information

North Ronaldsay Sheep fellowship

BBC Countryfile – Adam’s farm animals – Adam has a number of North Ronaldsay Sheep on his rare breeds farm.

RBST – Rare Breeds Survival Trust.

Spirit of Orkney website – find out more about the enchanting Orkney islands

Feb 22 2010

New Garden Organic Seed Project

The latest initiative from Garden organic, “Sowing New Seeds“, funded by the Big Lottery Local Food Fund, will directly enable many more gardeners in the East and West Midlands to grow non-traditional crops, while also documenting how to grow them based on the experiences of the region’s diverse communities.

Picture of seedlings being transplanted — Growing diverse varieties can be very rewarding

Garden Organic, which also runs the UK’s famous Heritage Seed Library dedicated to conserving the genetic diversity of vegetables, hopes that the project will unearth lots of interesting edible plants.

Sally Cunningham of the Sowing New Seeds project, said,

“The UK’s population has changed dramatically in the past 40 years and so have our eating habits. People from all over the world have settled here and grown vegetables from their native homes such as callaloo, white maize, Hamburg parsley, dudi, black-eye beans and water chestnuts.

Many of these plants originate from Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America or the Caribbean, and may eventually become adapted successfully to local conditions here in the UK.”

Share your seeds and experience
To get the project off the ground, Garden Organic is calling for anyone that grows exotic vegetables to come forward to share seeds and information.

The project’s aim is to give many more people in the East and West Midlands the chance to access and grow exotic seeds that have been grown under local conditions. Some of the varieties will also enter Garden Organic’s Heritage Seed Library, to be safeguarded and conserved for future generations.

The project will also produce vital fact sheets on how to grow the non-traditional crops, as well as events to demonstrate crop cultivation, seed saving, storage and cooking.

Garden Organic will also set up a brand new exotic crop garden at its flagship site, Ryton Gardens in Warwickshire.

To find out more and to get involved, visit the Garden Organic website where all contact information is availabe.

Sowing New Seeds also works with the following project partners: