Richard Galpin reports on some of the new varieties available for the first time through the London Freedom Seed Bank.
We reported in the Autumn that it had been a difficult year for our network of growers, and that we were anxious to see how seed stocks would be affected.
As seed continued to arrive throughout the winter months, the challenges of 2021 were certainly evident with tomato seed crops in particular short supply. But thanks to the resilience and adaptability of our growers (and small amounts of reserve stock from previous years) we are still able to offer a good range of varieties to our network members for the 2022 growing season.
One crop that seemed to cope particularly well with the changeable weather was beans. We received a great batch of Blauhilde climbing bean from OKGrow – a new food growing initiative on the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark. The group there found it to be a heavy cropping and delicious variety, sporting attractive purple flowers , and producing unusually long purple beans.
A new grower to our network – Ben Landsberry growing on the Grove Allotments, SE22 – had a productive year, saving Jacob’s Cattle Gold dwarf bean (there seem to be two versions of this variety – this is the gold one) and the beautiful black and white Ying Yang dwarf bean. Ben also enthusiastically sourced and saved seeds from the unusual and under-rated ‘Celtuce’. Celtuce, or stem lettuce is a Chinese vegetable, not a cross of lettuce / celery but shares some of the characteristics of both.
Also joining our network Growhampton, the brilliant food growing and ‘edible campus’ project at Roehampton University. They have shared new varieties of squash, beans, corn and amaranth, as well as some winter rye and oats, and Huauzontle – which adds to our expanding range of Central and South American crops. Seeds were saved from crops across the campus, and the university’s allotment plots. Some of the batches were fourth or fifth generation crops.
Available in limited quantities this year is the Ireland Creek Annie, another dwarf bean. This was collected by Charlotte Dove during a seed-saving research trip to the USA in 2014-5, and kindly grown on for a couple of years for us by Janet Galpin in Lincolnshire, so we could offer it to LFSB network members, with the hope of boosting London saved stocks. Janet says it’s a good productive bean that doesn’t need too much space, best for shelling or dried beans.
We’re also delighted to have had the opportunity to increase stocks of Khmelnytsky climbing beans. It’s a burgundy and white speckled climbing bean originally given to the LFSB grower by Yuliya whose Grandmother Tanya had been given the beans in Khmelnytsky, Ukraine. Easy to grow with moderate to good yields.
Responding to a growing interest in perennial food crops which often feature heavily in permaculture practice, we have added a few interesting types of perennial onions, which can make useful additions to mixed plantings in community gardens. Seed collection of perennial onions can be painstaking, but once a patch is established the crop can be scaled up by division and self-seeding combined. The common names for some of these perennial varieties sometimes overlap, so we’ve added the latin names in the description.
Edible flowers and useful plants to attract pollinators, or repel pests were popular as always, and we have replenished stocks of Calendula, Nigella, Sunflowers, Marigolds and others.
If you’re requesting seed, as always please be mindful that we’re a small voluntary network. For maincrop supply please use seed companies – (Realseeds, Seed Cooperative and Vital Seeds are recommended). And a reminder of our seed pledge, that in exchange for the free seed you will make every attempt to contribute seed for other growers to use in future years.
Upcoming Dates:
- Seed requests submitted by Thursday 3rd February 2022 will go out in the main delivery batch in the second week of February.
- Volunteers for seed packing welcome! Saturday 5th February 2022 2-5 in SW9. Get in touch if you’re interested.
- If you are requesting seed, please do try to join us for the our network meet-up online Saturday 26th February 5pm to share seed-saving plans for the year ahead. Eventbrite signup here