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Heirloom Plants & Gardens

A new way to trade heirloom seeds between the US and UK?

13 years ago

Would anyone care to trade heirloom vegetable seeds with me in the UK? Before 2004, when the US phytosanitation laws started to bite, I happily exchanged hundreds of heirloom seeds via US forums to share with members of my UK heirloom gardening club The Gardening Guild.

(I think I am personally responsible for the present glut of Mother's Six Week beans in the south of England!)

Nowadays I can legally receive seeds in the UK from the US or anywhere else (or mail them throughout the EC). But I cannot mail seeds to the US. (Smuggling them past Customs in hollowed out copies of Poe's The Purloined Letter was frowned upon, I found.)

Solution: I would happily provide a free copy of my book The Lazy Vegetable Grower to anyone who cares to mail me interesting heirloom varieties of, say, tomatoes or legumes. It sold 6600 copies in paperback at $20 so I suppose it's a mini 'best seller'. I could email it as a pdf or downloadable ebook.

The seeds would go to a good home: the many heirloom-growing enthusiasts at the Gardening Guild.

If that idea is of interest, please let me know what seeds you might have to trade. Thank you!

Here is a link that might be useful: The Gardening Guild

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Comments (4)

organicdan
13 years ago
John, I am happy to trade heirlooms. My lists are posted and a few new ones to add. Have a few more tomatoes and peppers to extract seeds from, some nice melons and squash await.

I already trade in England and Scotland. The US trades come from many devious routes.

With the technology seeds being pushed it is more important to save and trade the heirlooms. It is puzzling why so many people discovered the real taste of heirlooms.
john-yeoman
13 years ago
Hi Dan

Nice to hear from you. I've since discovered that there's now no problem in trading seeds, small ones at least, between the US and UK. It's a far cry from 2004 when a US friend and I would debate whether to add beans to rosary chains to disguise them as ethnic jewellery!

My trade list has shrunk sadly in recent years but I have these heirloom tomatoes. I've kept growing them because each has some very special characteristic:

Alaskan Fancy (early red small plum), Sasha's Altai (ultra-early, large red), Aunt Madge (UK heirloom, small red plum, totally indestructible), Cherokee Purple, Broad Ripple Yellow Currant (small yellow cherry, remarkably blight-resistant), Vince (large yellow stuffer, looks exactly like a sweet pepper) and Fablonelystnjy (large yellow cherry, Polish, intensely sweet and prolific).

Let me know if there's anything there you'd like.

Best wishes
John Yeoman

Here is a link that might be useful: The Gardening Guild
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organicdan
13 years ago
John, The Sasha's Altai sounds interesting. Can you provide a source and info on the Vince?

Dan
john-yeoman
13 years ago
Dan, Sasha's Altai has now become something of a legend. See: http://www.seedstrust.com/st/sasha.html

It's a nice ultra-early big pink-red, somewhat bland (as all early tomatoes are) but good in salads.

The Vince yellow stuffer seed was given me by a Swiss member of the Gardening Guild in 2002. I just emailed her and got the reply: 'I originally got it from an organic gardening fair Pro Specie Rara [in Switzerland]'. She thinks it's of French or US origin. Google provides no reference. So it must be rare!

Much fun can be had by showing it to friends. They assume it's a sweet pepper, even when it's cut open.

I suspect we should be communicating about this off the forum but, as a newbie, I'm not sure how to do that yet. Let me know how your thoughts.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Gardening Guild

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