SEED SWAPS

One way to reduce the cost of gardening is to swap seeds and seedlings. Kate meets a group of friends and a village community group who have done just that

YOU KNOW HOW it goes; as the days begin to warm up and we smell spring in the air, we rush out to the garden centre and buy packets and pac ets o seeds to grow our avourite flowers and vegetables. Then, once they’ve germinated, we end up with hundreds of seedlings of the same variety. And that’s not much fun. If you’re lucky, you have like-minded friends who you can swap your seeds with so end up with far more variety in your garden.

I met local Ketton resident Annie Hall who had been inspired by the Oundle Waste Less group (Owl) who had set up a seed swap in Oundle. She immediately approached the Ketton Horticultural Society and Mary Cade, a parish councillor whose husband was involved In Ketton Green Spaces. They set up a village facebook group, Ketton Seed Swap, and in no time at all the news was buzzing around the village.

‘The trick,’ says Annie, ‘is to keep it free and simple.’ Ketton Green Spaces provided money for a large plastic storage box that is situated conveniently next to the village shop. Anyone who has seeds to spare can put them in the box which keeps them dry, with a label giving the plant’s name, growing tips and descriptions of height, spread, etc. Then people come and take what they want, hopefully leaving seeds in return. Gardeners with seedlings can leave their telephone number in the box or on the facebook page advising people where to collect them from.

Annie is particularly pleased that so many children come with their parents to choose the seeds they’d like to grow. ‘They get very excited and the box has become a focal point in the village. At Christmas we were lucky enough to have mistletoe to share from a tree in the village paddock owned by the Rutland and Leicestershire Wildlife Trust. And a local businessman, Tim Wade at Dynamics Environmental, donated so e unds which were spent on wildflower seeds These were bagged up and shared via the box at the end of the summer, giving instructions on how and where to sow them. We’re waiting for photos of the results with great e cite ent egetable and flower seeds are split airly evenly with runner beans being the most commonly shared seed last year.

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Tons of Tomatoes

In Great Easton a group of friends decided to set up their own mini seed swap concentrating on the seeds of heritage tomato plants.

Keen gardener Andrew Connon mentioned to his friends he’d stumbled upon the quirky specialist heritage vegetable grower Thomas Etty and was planning to order some heirloom tomato seeds, but he wanted to get a good selection. As there are normally 50-100 seeds in each packet, unless you keep them until the next year (and seeds do have a shelf life) when you sow them you end up with too many plants - who can cope with up to 100 tomato plants? It was agreed he would order 10 packets and each household in the group would germinate two or three packets and then swap them at the seedling stage. This way, everyone would end up with a sensible amount of plants of each of the 10 varieties.

Everyone in the group had grown tomatoes before but always standard hybridised tomatoes which, although usually more blight resistant and designed to produce heavier crops, ‘they just don’t taste as nice,’ villager John Boulter told me. ‘We wanted to try tomatoes with more flavour and as broad a range as possible

The varieties chosen were Anna Russe, Carters Golden Sunrise, Garden Peach, Golden Queen, Pantano, Pineapple, Yellow Pear, Brandywine, Red Zebra and Black from Tula. any o the pac ets still have the flowery descriptions on them from when they were originally grown in the 19th and early 20th century.

The seeds arrived during one of the Covid-19 lockdowns so Andrew distributed them whilst on his daily walk, then each household germinated them. Everyone in the group owns a greenhouse and even though you can, of course, grow tomatoes outside, ‘you get a better crop and longer season with a greenhouse,’ John told me. ‘We were still picking some towards the end of November. I made green chutney with the ones that didn’t turn, and obviously ate and gave plenty away during the season. And I like to roast then freeze them to make a base for tomato sauce for the rest of the year.

‘Some varieties were more successful than others,’ John continued. ‘Peche Jaune was the most challenging and had slightly furry skins, but were delicious. Some of the big beefsteak ones were particularly good and we did a mix of colours including black ones, a very dark red called Black from Tula, yellow tomatoes and one in the shape of a pear.

‘Mine got a little bit of blight at the end of the season but there was a lot of blight around last year even for the modern ones.’ Things did get a little competitive and Andrew thinks he had the best tomato harvest he’s ever had and considered it a great success. Plans are afoot to extend the seed swap to additional vegetable varieties although the friends have decided to reduce the amount of tomato varieties to six or eight this year.

Medbourne Plant Fair

Keen gardeners Rebekah and Jane tell Kate how they came up with an inspired idea to fundraise thousands of pounds for local charities while indulging their passion at the same time

‘IN 2005 WE were sitting in a arent Teachers ssociation eeting at ringhurst ri ary chool loo ing or undraising ideas ebe ah told e when ane and announced we would organise an event based around gardening and plants e ca e up with the idea o running the rst ever plant air in the area The idea is si ple people donate plants ro their gardens and we sell the to the public t this ti e o year you re always busy dividing plants and realised was putting stuff on the co post heap that we could sell or p or so started potting it up veryone has asses o stuff in their garden that grows adly that they don t want but or so eone else it s a treasure The rst year we ade nd then it too on a li e and a culture o its own The air grew and grew and we started serving soup ca e ho e ade bread and sausage rolls ne year our advertising was so success ul we had a coach load ro ilton eyes and even got as ar as the events page in the aily Telegraph The ueues were li e the rst day o the arrods sale we were holding people bac at the gates eople donate all sorts o plants ane e plained including vegetables shrubs bunches o rhubarb and wild garlic wrapped up in string pond plants house plants you na e it they donate it ut all are or us to sell and the oney raised went rst to ringhurst ri ary chool and now to edbourne re chool e ve done years so ar and raised over eople co e as it s a happy co unity event ebe ah continued and they go away with a bo o plants that are good uality locally grown and well loved and co e bac again ne t year eople co e who don t now about gardening and we re able to tell the what plants grow in the shade the sun etc ll the volunteers who serve at the stall are gardeners and now what the plants are and what they do e pass on plants advice and reco endations ne year we had so eone who had inherited a brand new garden and they ust wanted to ll it t was late in the day so we said they could have the whole lot le t over or nother year so eone as ed or Lady s antle as she wanted a Lady s antle border and she too all we had which was a lot! Then ovid struc so we couldn t do the event at edbourne illage all as usual ut as we d potted up the plants already did it outside y house and we raised ro the door Last year we ade even ore than that

The plan this year is to run stalls ro the end o arch outside their houses in ain treet edbourne and igh treet reat aston with a uni ue drainpipe syste that people see to love which collects the oney Lots o people in this area have lovely gardens said ane and people li e to re resh the This is a very low cost way o doing it now there s a whole bed in y garden going to redo this spring ut over the years y garden has started to loo ore and ore li e ebe ah s as eep buying her plants