Tags
Garden Organic, Holt Farm Organic Garden, Pennard Plants, Seedy Sundays, the Heritage Seed LIbrary
Just come back from an enjoyable visit to Holt Farm in North Somerset and their ‘Seedy Sunday’ event. The six and a half acres of garden are one of only a handful of ornamental gardens to be certified organic by the Soil Association and is owned by the family behind the Yeo Valley dairy business. The ‘Seedy Sunday’ run in conjunction with the Heritage Seed Library is an opportunity for people to swap seeds and pick up unusual varieties. There were also local plant nurseries attending, although I managed to resist this temptation.
The first ‘Seedy Sunday’ was held in 2002 in Brighton, the idea being that people could get together and swap seeds. The idea took off and has spread to other parts of the country. I didn’t take any seeds along to swap because my spare seeds are being donated to a local community garden this winter but I did make a donation for several packets from the Heritage Seed Library and bought some other seeds from a local nursery, Pennard Plants, that had a stall at the event. I came away with a packet each of Uchiki kuri squash, Victorian podded peas, Yugoslavian black bean (a dwarf french bean) and some Sweet peas called ‘Just Jenny’.
The Heritage Seed Library is part of Garden Organic which used to be the Henry Doubleday Research Association. It aims to protect old varieties of seeds, mainly from Europe, that are not on the EU’s approved seed list and because they are not approved by Europe it is illegal to sell them. To get around this problem you can go along to events like today and donate, swap or become a member of the HSL for £20 a year and then you can choose up to 6 varieties and swap for other seeds.
I was mainly interested in visiting the seed swap but the gardens were an added bonus. The gardens at Holt Farm are contemporary in style, with a gravel garden, use of grasses and beautiful sculptures. This strangely mild autumn that we are experiencing meant the gardens still looked beautiful with the structure of grasses and seed heads.
There was a wildflower meadow with coreopsis, cornflower and ammi still in flower and a cutflower garden with dahlias, cleome and scabious blooming and an ornamental veg garden. The garden is still a work in progress (what garden isn’t) with new sections such as a woodland walk that will take a while to reach maturity. I would certainly visit the gardens again, especially in late summer when the gravel garden will look at it’s best. The location is beautiful, at the foot of the Mendip Hills, overlooking Blagdon Water. I loved the attention to detail in the garden with the beautiful bespoke iron gates and sculptures.
Always a bonus is an excellent cafe and I would certainly recommend the food at Holt Farm. So all in all a great day out.
Table decorations in the cafe
For more information on Holt Farm go to http://theorganicgardens.co.uk/, ‘Seedy Sundays go to http://www.seedysunday.org and the Heritage Seed Library go to http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/hsl/hsl.php.
wellywoman 
Sounds like you had a great day and the gardens look lovely – if only …
That sounds like a brilliant day out, and your choice of seeds sound interesting.
You are the second person to blog about Holt Farm, and I really need to get myself down there before we move away from here. I also really like the idea of a seed swap.
Sounds like a lovely day, we had our 1st Hastings seedy sunday event yesterday too. A great start and I picked up some interesting bits, donated lots of heritage beans, met some lovely local gardeners of all ages. A great time was had by all 🙂
I got several packets of seeds from the Heritage seed library this year with some great results and some I wouldn’t bother with again. Do you always use them?
There have been several professional gardeners (Alys Fowler and Noel Kingsbury) who have written about heritage seeds. Their argument being why would you when you can get better results with F1 hybrids.
My view is that if we don;t keep the old strains going (and their wonderful names like Gravedigger peas) we ultimately lose something.
I would love to have a seed swap in these parts. Great idea.
Hi Janet,
I haven’t used any seeds from the Heritage Seed Library before so not sure what results I’ll get but looking forward to the experiment. I agree I think we should try to keep some of these old varieties going. I love their names too. F1 hybrids have their place but they have generally been developed for agriculture and are often not suited to the amateur small scale grower. One of their downsides is that they crop at the same time which is great for a commercial grower not so good for people like you and me . I think we should have access to both types so the HSL is important as an alternative to the approved seeds on offer. Seed swaps are becoming more popular have a look on Google you never know there might be something nearby.
It sure sounds and looks like you had a good day, and one that I’m sure many gardeners, myself included, would enjoy! xx
Sounds like you had a great day Wellywoman. I have come across Pennard Plants at a couple of shows – love their seed packets 🙂
Glad you enjoyed your visit here. We are Seed Guardians for Martock broad bean and Bridgewater climbing french bean and were pleased with them, the yields and flavour were good, the CFB was slightly crowded out and so not quite as successful. We are following the debate in the gardening press with interest but are happy to grow both recent introductions as well as HSL varieties.
I was at Holt Farm earlier in the year (probably the other person Janet remembers blogging about it) and loved the place. It’s good to see the garden was still going strong at the end of the season.