Andrew Oldham explores the rich history of community seed saving and explains why it matters for the future
We have grown up and along the way we have forgotten the magic of seeds, their importance and the hidden story they contain. As a child, seed for me was something my dad kept in a drawer in his greenhouse, brown paper bags and torn packets gaping open, the use by dates largely ignored because the seed contained within often wasn’t the variety named on the front.
I remember seeing old timers wandering with used envelopes of home saved seed spilling forth from their pockets. They often contained jewels in the shape of seed like Peggy’s peas – the flowers were cream, almost yellow and named by one old timer after his wife. Long after they were both gone, Peggy’s Peas grew on, though I doubt they made it out of my hometown.
A seed by any other name
I still grow them although it took me ten years to track the variety back in the late 1990s after seeing them on Harry Dodson’s Victorian Kitchen Garden and yelling at my wife, ‘That’s Peggy’s peas’. Turned out they were ‘NE Plus Ultra’. It is one of my favourite peas, not because of the taste – which is fantastic – not because of the yields – which are fabulous – but because of the story of Peggy. Seed doesn’t just carry the next generation of the plant, it carries its past forward for the future, it is the story of us. It is the story of saving what works well for us.
Now, all plants are a little rampant and if allowed to do their thing, many (like brassica and beans) will cross breed, and you will end up with a new variety. As a child, I knew plenty of old timers on my dad’s allotment who didn’t know the name of certain vegetables and the conversations I had with them ran like this:
‘What’s its name, Mister?’
‘Stan’s Bean.’
‘Why?’
‘Cos, have you seen Stan? He’s a big blighter like those beans.’
Of course, it was okay for old timers to say that but as a five-year-old I would have sat on a doorstep with a bar of soap in my mouth if I repeated it, again. That’s not being nostalgic, it’s just the way people named their seed. Botanical Latin wasn’t important when you were feeding your family. Saving money was. Saving seed equalled saving money, but over the years, this practice fell out of fashion until saved seed dwindled to the point where they became heritage or heirloom seed. They became fashionable through our neglect to save them.
Not many of you will know the ‘Blue Coco’ bean but
