In my short 10 minute introduction to Norwegian Seed Savers, I talk about one of the pioneers and the person that inspired me into seed saving, Lawrence Hills of the Henry Doubleday Research Association. The first newsletter I received from HDRA in 1980 was about the World’s Vanishing Vegetables…almost exactly 40 years on it’s a very interesting read: https://www.fni.no/getfile.php/1311057-1573120703/Dokumenter/Kvann%20-%20powerpoint%20presentation.pdf
Thanks to Regine Anderson of FNI for arranging this event!
On 4th April 2018, I took advantage of my trip to Switzerland to attend the The Potential of Perennials for Food Resilience symposium to visit KVANN’s (Norwegian Seed Savers) sister organisation Pro Specie Rara in Basel. Many thanks to Director Béla Bartha (since 2002) and Head of Education, Esther Meduna for making me feel so welcome. The trial grounds and offices of Pro Specie Rara are located in the Merian Gärten, a botanical garden in Basel. I lead a walk and talk of the trial grounds and botanical collections followed by an evening lecture at Markthalle in the centre of Basel! A great place for a seed saver organisation to be located! Béla also showed me their seed vault a specially climate controlled room (15C and 15% humidity). The walk and talk was sadly interrupted by heavy rain and we moved indoors and I did a short version of my evening lecture instead!
Happy to announce that I’ll be in Switzerland the week after Easter to attend and talk at a symposium on “The Potential of Perennials for Food Resilience” Here’s the symposium announcement: https://www.perennials-resilience.org (more later!).
Excited that I’ll get to meet Mr. Mountain Gardens himself, Joe Hollis, who is also attending. Many of you will know Joe from his youtube videos, like this one on Udo (Aralia cordata): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNzCpfSQWks
Joe has spent 25 years developing Paradise Gardens, a botanical garden of edible plants in the mountains of western N. Carolina!
I will also visit Pro Specie Rara (KVANN – Norwegian Seed Savers’ counterpart in Switzerland!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProSpecieRara
Thanks to Matthias Brück and Katharina Serafimova for doing most of the organising!
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
