Sustainable Crediton's 4th Annual Seed Swap

The Crediton Seed Swap was on the 23rd February from 11am - 2pm at the The Old Town Hall, High Street, Crediton,EX17 3LF.

This year was better than ever. Despite a disastrous gardening season last year, there were enough seeds to last the day. The numbers of people coming were up and there was a real buzz in the room as people swapped seeds and information and met up with friends or made new ones.

In addition to trying the seeds, there were stalls about bee keeping by Jessie Watson Brown who works with bees at Embercombe who run courses in bee keeping. Local bookshop, Once Read Books, had a great bookstall with a great range of books related to gardening and food.

The Devon Wildlife Trust's Jo Forsyth was available to fly the flag for wildlife in Devon, she is a regular at our seed swap event because she enjoys it so much, this was her fourth seed swap with us. Orchards Live not only promoted orchards and growing fruit trees, they had some tasty items made from orchard produce to try.

The Wood Fuel from Hedgerows Group is a new group in Sustainable Crediton which aims as it says to obtain firewood from hedgerows by working with local landowners. Barbara Lester brought her new Seed Saving kits to gauge if people thought they were a useful item, Crediton Garden Club provided information about themselves and Sustainable Crediton had information on seeds saving and composting. In addition there was a stall with plants and a raffle. Many people seemed to have enjoyed the extra information available from the stalls and once again many people enjoyed the luscious homemade lunch for sale.

Saving seed from one year to plant the next is a traditional skill, practised since man began deliberately growing food to feed himself.

Today, seed swapping can:

●       Help protect biodiversity and keeps the diversity of locally adapted varieties going

●       Maintain growing skills

●       Get round the National List, which makes it illegal to sell varieties not on the list.

●       Seed swaps keep seed making in the garden and out of the laboratory and resists the privatisation of plant genetic material.

●       Saving seed and seed swaps introduce you to other local gardeners and help develop a sense of community.

●       Very helpfully, saving seed can also can also save you money

A seed swap works by people bringing seeds they have saved and taking away other people's seeds to use. It doesn't matter if you haven't any seeds to bring though, it is hoped that by next year you will saved some seeds and bring them to the next seed swap

We operate on voluntary donations only because it is illegal to sell seeds that are not on the national seed list. As we swap heritage and other older varieties of seeds it means we cannot charge.

You can bring both vegetable and flower seeds. It would be helpful if you label packets with the type, variety and date collected e.g. Tomato Moneymaker 2008. Surplus commercial seed packets are also acceptable.

If anyone would like further information please contact Dee Ross on info@creditonlocalproduce.co.uk