Thanks for coming by for a visit. We're certainly happy you're here, and we warn you in advance that creating online media is a pleasure we take in measured doses. Our juices really start pumping out in the garden, swapping tuber tips in a highland village, or swirling around a sizzling kitchen full of friends and feast preparations ... computers can only hope for a distant second place!
That said, we're pleased to offer you this site. It provides a range of ways to access and enjoy our work, learn from our many mistakes, access our educational productions and find ways to create your own future as a passionate seed saver.
One Frequently Answered Question: Why did we jump start a Seed Savers movement in Australia?
We became alarmed by the weird speed-dating going on between seed companies owners and slickos from petroleum/pesticide corporations. That was in the early 80s.
The concentration has rocketed. Now in 2009, two-thirds of commercial seeds worldwide are owned by three corporations (it was 33% in 1999). The largest is Monsanto, the second Dupont and the third Syngenta.
So what did we do?
We shared our seed collection
We had made a collection of open-pollinated vegetable seed from local farmers so as to grow our own food in NSW's wettest valley. We had been maintaining these varieties for years and passing them on to anyone wanting to caretake them. That meant saving the seeds seriously, replanting to obtain adaptations and passing them on to friends and some back to us.
Went media...seeds kept coming
In 1986 we started to write articles in the press and give radio and television interviews about our seed experience. Elder Australian gardeners, some just having moved to a retirement home without facilities for gardening, understood very well our plea. They responded brilliantly and began to send seeds of the vegetable varieties they had maintained sometimes for a life time. Every week their parcels and envelopes of amazing seeds would fill up our mail box. In some parcels there would be a long family history in beautiful handwriting.
130 varieties of tomatoes in one season
We grew them out in our gardens, in 1988 growing 130 varieties of tomatoes and passed them around to our network of gardening friends. But it all grew too big and we had then to find many more people to look after all these living seed samples. We started the The Seed Savers' Network in 1986.
8500 seed samples sent in
By 2006, we had received 8500 seed arrivals at our PO box, or dropped at Seed Savers office. We duly recorded them in a FileMaker Pro database, allocated each an accession number, tested them for viability by our volunteers and multiplied them when feasible.
Many friends make it happen
Volunteers and retired helpers on and near the Gold Coast in Queensland packed the seeds into little packets recording sowing cultivation and usage details. We then sent out each packet to a gardener in what we thought would be a suitable location for that variety. In total we sent out excess of 500 000 seed packets. Hot potatoes!
Local varieties created in 1000's gardens
The rare seed stocks had to be shared around the country to be saved from oblivion. By saving seed again in a different climate, altitude, soil, new varieties started to shift, the genetic dice was thrown once again. Some died in the process, some made it very well: local adaptions began to emerge slowly, sometimes pretty quickly we thought.
Also varieties were cross pollinating and forming new strains providing those saving the seeds were crafty and observant of changes at each generation. This is where we had to write a guideline for seed production that became the best selling
that is translated into 8 languages, and still counting.
Producing much excess seeds, gardeners started listing their varieties, an average of 1500 varieties per Seed Savers newsletter. Now we have 80 Local Seed Networks doing the job of multiplying and giving the seeds to neighbours and friends. Jude and Michel now spend their time administering Seed Savers, coordinating the LSNs, gardening for the kitchen, making film clips for the site, and have just completed a documentary
And writing this....If you have serious skills to edit and upload on Youtube please email Michel. We also need translators.
From the horse's mouth you can find out what happens to farmers who re-use Monsanto seeds a second time. This is not a joke.
An Overview of our Activities
These are our pride and joy productions that try to capture a fraction of our learnings in a form that hopefully will help others. Feel free to browse, download, and share. Please consider purchasing the fully produced versions since every dollar helps keep our non-profit operation participating in a better future.
If you're new to the idea and the seed network, have a look around near you and see if you can join with others to share seeds, ideas and a few likely stories! If you're an existing networker or are ready to get started, this area will help you access the materials you need. Local Seed Networkers find locally adapted seeds the ones that are proven to grow well in their area and make them available to others. They invite others into their gardens and organise to visit others' gardens and offer their seeds. That is the idea. The seed thing is all about abundance consciousness.
The more you give, the more you get.
The classic and enduring reference for anyone ready to become a seed saver. Sample the contents, see translated versions, order a print version online.
Ready for an adventure? The blog is sort of like a written seed-cam. Unedited, unpredictable, fresh as the morning pea-blossom. Come along on our journeys to the back blocks and get your hackles up over the continued degradation of the world's food vigour.
Yes, the big story behind the story. A bit of our journey, highlights from a long walk with the media, and the mysterious mechanics of how our operation keeps rolling along.
