Just another Seedy Sunday

Seedy Sunday has come a long way since the first community seed swap event in Kemptown in 2002, but it remains the biggest of the Seedy Sunday events in the UK. This year’s event at Brighton Corn Exchange brought around 3,000 people together to swap seeds, buys seeds and plants, attend talks, including one on organic gardening from Bob Flowerdew himself.

I hadn’t been to a Seedy Sunday since the days when it was held at Hove Town Hall, but its relocation to the Corn Exchange hasn’t, thankfully, been accompanied by any attempt at gentrification. The hall was packed: seed suppliers included Thomas Etty, Beans and Herbs, and Pennard Plants, and then down at the far end of the hall on a large square of tables, visitors rummaged eagerly through the seed swap packets, which remains the heart of the event. No matter how obscure the seeds you’re looking for, there is a good chance you’ll find them at Seedy Sunday, and a guarantee that you’ll be distracted by many others at the same time.

I browsed through the brown paper packets looking specifically for violet tomatillos (found), purple-skinned Violet de Gournay radishes (not found as such, but Thomas Etty has promised to sell me a packet from their stocks back at HQ), and stripey-skinned aubergines (found, Listada di Gandia). 

There is usually a wide variety of seed potatoes, and Pennards were selling the Salad Blues I was looking for, and also had a separate display of soft fruit including pots of All-Gold raspberry canes. A good haul. Last time I visited Seedy Sunday, I bought my first ever wasabi plant and a couple of lemon grasses, but I could find no lemon grass this time.

The distractions were the delightfully named Black Truffle tomato, a mountain pepper plant (Drymis lanceolata) from Edulis Nursery – evergreen, very hardy, leaves and black berries both edible – and a bottle of rosehip syrup, as I completely missed out on making my own last year.

And always on the look-out for space-saving ideas I couldn’t pass by Evergreen Roof Gardens without taking a good look at their modular vertical planting system, below.

Seedy Sunday

Seedy Sunday originated in Canada in the late 1980s, in order to bring communities together to share open-pollinated seeds and heritage varieties. The first Brighton event was in February 2002 and remains the largest Seedy Sunday event in the UK, although there have also been Seedy Sundays in Eastbourne and Cambridge - and a Seedy Saturday in Lewes, in Sussex.

Yet the whole idea of seed swapping and heritage variety exchange is currently under threat from proposed EU legislation, covering the registration of 'plant reproductive material' (seeds, tubers, cuttings, etc). The proposal is grinding its way through various readings and amendments - in its original form it would have made it illegal to swap seed, even between amateur gardeners or on a friendly or neighbourly basis. Campaigning from a number of bodies, including the RHS, Real Seeds and Garden Organic has seen some exemptions for private gardeners added to the proposal, but there is still more to be done to ensure future access to as wide a variety of seeds as possible.

Click here for the full text of the current draft report to see how it might affect you.

Spuds you like

For the last few years, I've been very conservative about growing potatoes. Having found an early new potato, Lady Christl (left), which for me matches a superb nutty flavour with beautiful unblemished creamy skin, I've stuck with that for harvesting from June to September, and have grown Pink Fir Apple as a maincrop for harvesting from September onwards. I've occasionally tried out some other earlies, such as Charlotte (nice but too similar to Lady Christl), and International Kidney, which I disliked at the time because the potatoes fell apart in the pan when I tried to boil them. I'm now not so sure that this is the fault of the potato and is more likely to be down to the growing conditions (too dry), so perhaps I should give the International Kidneys another go.

Having tried out a number of heritage potatoes in preparation for our Secret Garden Club Potato Masterclass, I've cleared some extra space on the plot in order to experimenting with growing some new varieties.

Cara
Recommended by a number of people as a great baking and chipping potato, it's also apparently fairly drought-resistant. I find I rarely have to water potatoes specifically, but if we do have a dry summer under the hosepipe ban, hopefully the Caras will come through unaffected.

Shetland Black
With skins of a deep midnight blue, the flesh is creamy-yellow with a dark blue vascular ring. Like Cara, above, these are best baked or chipped, or roasted.



Pink fir apple potatoes

Pink Fir Apple I'm sticking with Pink Fir Apple for this year at least, as it usually rewards me with a high yielding, long lasting crop. I can dig up beautiful Pink Fir Apples throughout the winter. It's great boiled or steamed in salads, but they're also good sauteed and I love baking them whole as well.

Salad Blue
"Are they dyed?" our Garden Club attendees wanted to know. These potatoes are puzzling as no-one expects potatoes to be a dark indigo colour all the way through the flesh - and yet they still taste like potato. They make a distinctive mash and great chips. Roasted, the colour loses a lot of its impact as the potatoes brown in the fat.

Mayan Gold
Mayan Gold is a variety developed comparatively recently from the Phureja potatoes of Peru, so you can say that this is a close approximation of the first potatoes brought back from the New World. They are a distinctive buttery-yellow colour, a shade I associate with potatoes served in the Mediterranean, as opposed to the creamy-white of many British varieties. The taste is very like a new potato, but the texture is more floury: they're good for mash, roasting, and beautiful, pillowy chips.



 Examples of heritage potatoes, clockwise from top: Highland Burgundy, Salad Blue, Mayan Gold, Golden Wonder and Pink Fir Apple

 I've managed to retain space for my beloved Lady Christls, but one heritage potato which I would have liked to have included for its looks failed the taste test: Highland Burgundy is a hugely attractive spud, with dark red skin and bright crimson flesh all the way through. Unfortunately, I found it bland in flavour and with an almost fudgy texture. It looks great mixed with 'normal' potato in a mash, but the flavour didn't stand out on its own.

Salad blue, Highland Burgundy, Mayan Gold potatoes supplied by Carroll's Heritage Potatoes - seed and eating potatoes both available. Lady Christls supplied by Marshalls Seeds. Pink Fir Apples supplied by Victoriana Nursery. Cara, Shetland Black potatoes supplied by Thompson & Morgan.