Firstly just a bit of housekeeping: the Community Dinner that was scheduled for tonight has been cancelled due to lack of numbers. In the future if you would like to see such events go ahead, please make sure you book in advance.
The next upcoming event is the Mayor's Peak Oil Ball on Saturday Dec 3 at the Palais. Details to come.
Thank you to everyone who turned up for the screening of Juliette of the Herbs at the Savoia. What a lovely film and what a lively discussion afterwards. Thanks to Margot for being the scribe. Here are the notes from the night:
How do we create a culture of seed saving and swapping?
Save seeds from our home gardens and community gardens.
Swap them at community garden working bees and at the monthly harvest swap meets.
Be careful as cross pollination can occur between some plants eg: zuccini, squash and pumpkins. Daikon crossed with wild raddish makes a useless root.
Growing successful plants means they are better adapted to a specific area, but they can lose the individual characteristics the plant started with.
Adaptability vs quality.
Rijk Zwaan is a Musk-based seed company that specialises in breeding and supplying vegetable seed for commercial cultivation. Maybe we could have an excursion out to see how they their company operates.
To save seeds make sure you identify what they are:
- Variety
- Lineage (how long you have been growing the plant)
- Where the plant was grown (wet or dry part of town)
- When the plant was harvested
- What type of soil the plant was grown in
- How was the plant fertilised?
- Was the plant grown in sun or shade?
Perhaps we could have a communal stamp made up with all the info we need to know about seeds. Variety, shade, frost sensitive etc.. Just like regular seed packages.
Do we want to have a centralised shire seed bank?
Resources:
The Seed Savers' Handbook by Michel and Jude Fanton
Film: The Seed Hunter
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