Thread: heritage and organic seeds

www.seedsavers.net looks like a good starting point for finding a seedsaver group near your place.

Crikey, have I offended everyone? surely not.

Don't think you have offended anyone , I checked out the website which is very good, thanks. I just didn't have anything to add to the conversation. )

An interesting site regarding community gardens is the "Australian city farms and community gardens network, lots of interesting, informative advice as well as good links.

Regarding seedsaving, I came across a good book called,(believe it or not) the Seed Savers handbook by Michel & Jude Fanton. Isbn 0 646 10226 24. And it's published in Australia.
Hope its still in print.

They're some good links there Huon.

I just planted my own seed that I've let the local climate (Ipswich) select. In mid September (already pretty warm) I planted some ordinary vitalis, epicure, dwarf brown, snake and butter beans bought from the hardware store and just let some of them tough it out – no water after they were out of the ground, no weeding, no fertiliser, pest control, nothing. They all grew but almost all carked it when the bad heat kicked in late October. More than I'd have imagined though put fruit on and one or two cropped pretty well considering, so I let it dry right out on the vine and collected it a week or two ago.

So now I've planted these trojans out again into more forgiving, more fertile soil and I won't skite yet but they've come out of the ground in record time. We'll see, it's hardly a scientific breeding program but it would be nice to develop some plants that produced the kind of yields they claim on the back of the packet but which didn't need gallons of water a day.

I'm pretty good at saving cobblers' pegs, they grow like champs.

Matt