Help Wanted

Like I mentioned in the last post, a number of packages of planting stock and seeds went out over the weekend or will go out today.  It’s a little hard to compare one year to the next because I don’t really count packages or keep track of the number of kilos I send out.  At the same time it’s clear what I sent out this year is sharply up from last year, perhaps double.

I’m not finished yet either!  In a few months my Yacón, Oca, Mashua and so on will be ready, and I will send this out to some people.  I’m also sure I’ll make trades with other people and/or just send out seeds to people who ask.

What I pay in postage is very low on a annual basis.  Mostly it’s just stamps.  Nearly everyone either reimburses me for the postage or sends something in trade.  Cost is not really an issue, at least for me.

Also, lets face it, I have this blog and I share plant materials because I think it’s an important thing to do and I enjoy it.  I don’t do it because I have to or it’s any sort of chore.

At the same time, it can be a lot of work.  For example Steph and I spent the better part of a day sorting my planting materials, going through what everyone wanted, hunting for it in my garlic or seed collection, then packaging it all up.

The time we spent doing this was not really a problem, but if it doubles again next year like it did this year, it’s soon going to become unmanageable.

Starting next year I’m going to have to find a way to limit the number of packages I send out, and I’m not sure yet how I’m going to do that.  I don’t really want to discourage anyone who wants something from asking for it, or ask for increasing amounts of money to make it a cost issue, as this would probably only discourage the very people I want the most to share things with.

I don’t want to only offer plant materials to bloggers, or make people promise to reshare the materials I give them.  In fact there aren’t any conditions I want to put on who can receive things from me, or what they can do with them, because to me that would be undermining the whole point of sending materials out.  These plant materials are not just for gardening geeks, they are for everyone who wants them to grow in their gardens, and for everyone to do whatever they want with them.

Why It’s Important

Probably most people reading this are wondering why I’m making such a big deal about plants that can be purchased from a seed company anyway.  In fact many of these people would probably prefer to buy from a seed company, because of convenience or a perceived difference in quality.  In fact I’m grateful many people feel that way right now.  If they all started asking me for seeds I would become swamped, because I’m not a seed company and will never be able to cope with that sort of volume.  There are however some very important reasons why it’s better to get plant materials informally from someone like me or perhaps a fellow gardener.

The first reason is preservation of biodiversity, as Ben so clearly illustrated at the recent bloggers meeting in Oxford.

This mentality most of us have as gardeners, where we all go to the store and buy the same packets of seeds, often F1 varieties, only ensures we are all growing plants with exactly the same genetics in our gardens.  If something happens, a disease or change in climate, we are all guaranteed to lose all of our plants at exactly the same time.

If a number of different seed-saving gardeners are growing cucumbers, even if they are the same named variety like ‘White Wonder’ or anything else, there will be small and important differences from one garden to the next.  Some gardeners will save seeds from the best looking plants, and others the best tasting.  Some gardens will have diseases and will therefore end up with a strain with some resistance.  Some gardeners will actually cause major variations of genetics to occur, by cross pollinating plants and creating new varieties.

By taking seeds from me, you help preserve the biodiversity that exists in my seeds, however big or small this may be.  Because these differences exist, it will always be possible to grow seed obtained from different sources side by side, and choose the most desirable seeds.  In this way we can continue to improve the seeds available for growing.  The more differences available the better, and the best possible situation is if every gardener everywhere is growing a slightly different plant, something that will never happen if we all buy the same packet of seeds from the same subset of seed stores.

The next important reason for trading seeds informally, particularly if you live in Europe, is it’s illegal to buy and sell these plant materials in many places.  While in Europe we do have a number of companies offering these seeds for sale, like Kokopelli or The Real Seed Catalogue, these companies are operating above the law and are subject to harassment or closure at any time.  For those of you who haven’t read some of my earlier posts on this subject, quite simply it’s a matter of nearly all seeds grown commercially are patented, and the unpatented varieties we grow and save seeds from represent unfair trading competition to commercial seeds and so are illegal.

By having an informal trading network of seeds and other plant materials, we not only have an alternative if the commercial sources were to be shut down, but we make companies like Kokopelli or Real Seeds less of a target because we are an alternative that can’t effectively be shut down by legal action.

What You Can Do

Grow and share your own seeds!

In many ways, the more informal the better.  Share with friends or fellow community garden growers.  Join seed exchange groups, or do it via the Internet.  Charge a modest amount of money, or do it for free.  Anyway you can find to get your seeds out there helps reduce the load for others who are also doing it.

In particular, for me personally, you can help me by also offering plant materials via your blog.  If you save and reshare things I send you, great!  If you get seeds or other plant materials from other sources, that’s fine too.  If you are reading this and don’t have a blog, but would like to share some plant materials, contact me and maybe we can find a way for you to offer plant materials here.  Anything you offer helps distribute the work and reduce the number of things I have to send out.

I am really pleased to see two other blogs of people who attended the meeting at Oxford now offering seeds to anyone who contacts them, and I really hope to see more.  You don’t have to offer much, one or two varieties is enough to get started.  You will probably have to spend some of your own money to get some of these seeds out there, but it’s not much!  A few postage stamps, unless you are sharing something heavy.

I did a little bit of an experiment, and I made two posts offering free Alpine Strawberry seeds, here and here.  People still find these posts in search engines, and I still get requests.  To give you an idea of what to expect if you make a post like that, I probably send out 10 to 20 requests per year.  Of course I am free to cancel the offer anytime I want.  If 100 people were to offer one type of seed in this way, it would be a tremendous Internet resource.  If any one person that I already sent these Alpine Strawberry seeds to were to contact me and offer to help save and send them out, that would make my life a lot easier too and make it more likely I would keep the offer going!