Volunteer gardeners and growers from Garden Organic’s Heritage Seed Library have scooped an ‘Environment Champion Award’ for their work protecting rare vegetable seeds.
The Seed Guardians were announced as winners in the community category of the 12th Community Inspiration Awards 2024.
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The award recognises an individual or organisation that’s been helping to make positive improvements to the environment. The group was commended for the way their work gives people the agency to grow, save, breed, and develop the edible heirlooms and biodiversity of the future.
More than 200 seed saviours are nurturing heritage seeds and plants on their veg plots and sending their seeds back to the Library, based at Ryton Gardens, near Coventry. Here, they replenish and secure almost half of Garden Organic’s 800-strong National Collection of Heritage Vegetables, which are passed on to current and future generations – supporting food security and plant diversity.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates 75 per cent of crop diversity was lost between 1900 and 2000. In the face of biodiversity loss and challenges like climate change, preserving a wide range of species and varieties is crucial.
“Each heritage variety thriving under the care of a Seed Guardian expands our options for developing resilient plants,” says the head of the Heritage Seed Library Catrina Fenton. “These dedicated volunteers produce approximately half of the seeds needed for conservation efforts each year – ensuring the continued existence of these varieties.”
The Community Inspiration Awards are organised by The Community Foundation, to recognise outstanding contributions made by staff from public and voluntary sector organisations, businesses and members of the community, whose efforts have made a positive difference in the community and have inspired and motivated others.
To find out more about the Heritage Seed Library head to gardenorganic.org.uk/hsl, where you can learn about becoming a Seed Guardian or a member of the library to support its work.
MEET SOME OF OUR SEED GUARDIANS
Hilary Van Beek loves to be among her sprawling veg and flowers at her flourishing Auchterarder allotment, at the base of the Highlands, where she nurtures heritage veg to preserve history, knowledge and skills.
“I was so worried about the lack of diversity in our food crops that I wanted to help preserve these old varieties for the next generation. There’s something magical about growing a variety that has been around for so long,” says the 35-year-old software engineer.
“We used to have this tremendous diversity in varieties of fruit and vegetables across the globe but now people are offered only a small selection of seeds, and quite a lot of them are F1,” she says. “Having a living library of seeds adds this incredible value. And as I live at the base of the Highlands, it’s wonderful to grow and save seeds that slowly adapt to my region and allotment.”
Marie duQuesnay has been a Seed Guardian for nine years. She lives on an exposed hill 850ft above sea level in Pembrokeshire but this hasn’t dampened her passion for seed saving.
She says: “It’s been fantastic to have the opportunity to play a tiny part in such an important project as the Heritage Seed Library. It is so sad to see that the intensification of farming is narrowing the range of what’s grown and coupled with regulations (especially in the EU) around what seeds are certified for sale, we’re losing very local varieties. And once they’re gone, that’s it.”
Nadia Mazza moved to the Morecambe Bay countryside to become a more self- sufficient gardener and in her Overton garden grows a range of crops for the Heritage Seed Library – and the climbing French beans have been a real success story.
“My stripey tiger beans have been prolific, producing a huge amount of beans, which I’ll return to the Library. Where can you buy tiger beans in the shops? It’s amazing I’m able to grow these beautiful beans in the wetter northwest of the UK!
“Increasing resilience and biodiversity, and keeping old seed varieties alive, is so important. If everyone grew the same vegetable varieties year-in-year-out and they got attacked by pests or diseases, we would have serious problems.”
ABOUT THE HERITAGE SEED LIBRARY
- The Heritage Seed Library maintains the National Collection of Heritage Vegetables and aims to conserve vegetable varieties that are not widely available. All of its seed – approximately 800 open-pollinated varieties – are made available for members to grow and enjoy.
- The collection consists of mainly European varieties, including:
- Rare landrace varieties, which are adapted to specific growing conditions.
- Heirloom varieties that have been saved over many generations.
- Varieties that have been dropped from popular seed catalogues and are no longer available to buy.
- Each year, up to 150 varieties of the heritage seeds are chosen for inclusion in the annual Heritage Seed Library seed list. Members of the Seed Library have from the beginning of December until the end of February to choose six free packets of seeds to grow. Find out more at gardenorganic.org.uk/hsl.
