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North Western Sydney Community Seed Savers
Date Founded:
2003-02
Coordinator Robyn Williamson
Please join us for seedsaving, community gardening and propagation of food plants in season every 4th Saturday of the month
9am to 1pm at:
Bidjiwong Community Nursery
Rear of Ted Horwood Reserve car park
off Renown Road (opposite the Sports Club)
BAULKHAM HILLS
From email 22/10/10
At Paddington Community Gardens, Sydney: A highlight of the afternoon was a talk on Seed Saving, presented to garden members by Robyn Williamson, urban horticulturist and permaculture designer.
Saving seeds from the best plants in your garden is a wonderful way to propagate those plants that are best adapted to local conditions, for free.
Seed saving guarantees that the most productive plants will grow in your garden. It’s a much better alternative to commercially available seed stock which often originates in other states or countries, from vastly different growing conditions. By collecting your best seeds and storing them, you’ll have a ready supply of seeds on hand in preparation for the next growing season, as well as extra seeds to exchange with other gardeners for different varieties.
Seeds from plants like parsley, celery, dill, parsnips and carrots can be found in the flowering umbels at the top of the stems, shaped like an upside down umbrella. These can be harvested when the flower heads are mature and used immediately, or stored in clearly marked paper bags and hung up to dry until ready for use. All organic matter except for the seeds needs to be removed eg. through winnowing. For long term storage, seeds must be completely dry and stored in small, air tight containers in a cool, dry place. The less air remaining in your storage containers the better, so try to fill them up to the top with seeds. Silica gel capsules can be used to help absorb any moisture, since this can produce fungal problems.
Seeds from the daisy family like dandelion and lettuce come surrounded by a white winged helicopter seed pod, which allows the seeds to float on the breeze and to corkscrew their way into the soil once they’ve landed. These seeds can be collected and placed in a large bag, allowing the seeds to fall to the bottom, after which they can be sieved prior to storage. The dried stalks of lettuce seed heads can be dried, then broken into smaller sticks and planted directly into the ground.
Wet seeds from tomatoes, cucumber, pumpkin and melons can be scoped out into a jar of water. Shake this mixture and allow it to settle for 2 or 3 days before pouring off the water and spreading the seeds out on a layer of newspaper to dry. This sheet of newspaper can then be placed directly onto the ground where you wish the seeds to sprout, or the dried seeds can be collected for storage.
It is said that 75% of the world’s seed biodiversity has been lost over the past 100 years. Saving seeds from your best plants is one way of maintaining viable plant varieties which will thrive in your local area.
When we plant seeds collected from our most successful plants, these seeds have already been adapting to local conditions (including the effects of Climate Change) while they were in the ground, ensuring that successive crops from that particular seed stock are continually adapting to the specific conditions in our own garden. This means that plants are happier and healthier, have greater pest resistance, produce a greater harvest, require less supplementary watering and are much easier to grow. The art of Seed Saving was simply common sense for our ancestors, and remains a very worthwhile practice for contemporary gardeners.
In our own garden, the crops that have survived especially well this summer in the severe heat conditions, like Basil, will be excellent candidates for our first collection of Summer Season Seeds.
CarriageWorks is a major performing arts centre in Sydney. Late 2009 a Kitchen Garden Project was created there. Three Local Seed Networks combined to have a stall at the Expo & Launch of Stage 2 on Saturday 6 February 2010.
North West Sydney Community, Permaculture Sydney North and Paddington Community Gardens Seed Savers ran a stall at the Launch of Stage 2 of the CarriageWorks' Kitchen Garden Project.
Photo by Michele Margolis
PSN Seed Savers LSN Coordinator Jannine Ord (2nd from left), NW Sydney Seed Savers' Robyn Williamson & Anja Schiller, and Marilyn Moseley LSN Coordinator for Paddington Community Garden
CONTACT DETAILS: Robyn Williamson
Permaculture Designer, Urban Horticulturist
Local Seed Network Coordinator, NW Sydney Seed Savers
Web: http://seedsavers.net/lsn/north-western-sydney-community-seed-savers
See a video of Carriageworks Stage 1 seed saving workshop here:
A couple of months ago I did a talk at the launch of the Carriageworks Kitchen Garden Project (see attached) that is being coordinated by Michael Mobbs and last Saturday we did seedsaving and no dig gardening at the 3rd (of 6) workshops that comprise the project. You can see our 3 hour workshop condensed into seven and a half minutes here:
At the launch it was packed to the rafters with 300 people inside the theatre and another 150 outside watching it on a big screen in the foyer.
Michael has just asked me to set up a seedsaving area at the launch of Stage 2 of the project in the foyer of the Carriageworks Theatre on 6 February 2010. It's supported by Council (City of Sydney), I think they're expecting about 500 people maybe more and are calling it a "mini expo". There will be music and some "amazing speakers".
I've already got 11 workshops lined up for next year, 2010 at Bidjiwong.
My next seed saving gigs will be at the Peats Ridge Festival from 29/12 to 1/1/2010.
Avec mes meilleurs voeux pour Noel et la nouvelle annee.
