A GARDENING charity in Warwickshire is sharing the importance of saving historic seeds with the nation.
Garden Organic’s ‘living library’ of heritage seeds will be featured on the BBC’s flagship gardening programme Gardeners’ World on Friday (June 2).
The charity’s demonstration garden at Ryton is the backdrop for a segment of the BBC2 programme which features presenter Sue Kent chatting to the head of the Heritage Seed Library Catrina Fenton about seed conservation.
Catrina explains how the seed library protects and preserves valuable heritage vegetable varieties to help futureproof plant biodiversity.
The library maintains the national collection of heritage vegetables, conserving more than 800 varieties that are not widely available, and seed is shared with gardeners to grow and enjoy.
Presenter Sue pays a visit to the library’s greenhouses to learn more about old ex-commercial varieties and heirlooms.
And as a keen gardener for more than 30 years, Sue also chooses some of the heritage seeds to grow at her Swansea coastline garden home, including a packet of ‘Chapman’s Purple’ runner bean, an heirloom donated by the Chapman family in Wales.
Some of the varieties highlighted in the programme include ‘Achocha Fat Baby’, a vine fruit that looks a bit like a cucumber with plump, yellow-green fruits covered with soft spines, ‘Suttons Early Giant’, a pea that can grow to more than two metres in height, and cucumber ‘King of the Ridge’, which dates back to the 1930s and has been described as ‘an ugly brute’ despite its very sweet crisp flesh.
The programme is on at 8pm on Friday June 2 and will also be available on the BBC iPlayer.
People wanting to support the work of the Heritage Seed Library can become a Garden Organic HSL member. Visit gardenorganic.org.uk/support-us/join-us or call on 02476 308210. for further details.
