It’s time to think (and grow) local

Peter Dowdall highlights two businesses offering plant seeds best suited to conditions here in Ireland.

Spring bedding plants are festooning the shelves of garden centres throughout the land, and I can only smile and feel my spirits lift when I see the pretty faces of the F1 hybrid Polyanthus and primroses. It’s lovely to inject some colour back into the garden at this time of the year.

Did you ever wonder what the term F1 hybrid means? They are largely annual and vegetable cultivars, produced by crossing two stable seed lines (called inbred lines) that give rise to especially uniform offspring that possess good vigour, yield, and other properties.

Thinking ahead is essential for gardeners and now is the time to start off annuals and hardy annuals from seed sown indoors for great summer displays.

One walk through the seed display in any garden centre will be enough to whet the appetite of even the most reluctant gardener. The promise of colour and long sunny days must release serotonins or similar in my brain for each year I leave with enough seed packets to plant up the gardens of the entire country when really a fraction of the amount is all that I need.

What should we look for when choosing seeds? F1 hybrids possess what is referred to as ‘hybrid vigour’, a term which is difficult to define but these are plants which are going to provide consistency in terms of quality, growth rate, flower colour and scent. It’s like a so-called ‘best in class’ mark. They will also provide larger flowers or fruit and disease resistance.

But should we be looking at plants that are so intensively hybridised, or is it time to take a step back and focus on locally-sourced seeds? The answer has to be a resounding ‘yes’. All of us, as gardeners or garden custodians, have a responsibility to garden sustainably and never, in the face of such a rate of species extinction and biodiversity loss, has this been more relevant.

However, how many of us will make the effort to look for seed produced sustainably and locally this year?

One of the huge advantages of growing seed which is locally grown is that the parent plants will have adapted to our environment and thus the seed will produce plants more suited to our growing conditions.

If you want seed to produce that beautiful wildflower meadow in your garden, then look no further than wildflowers.ie. Sandro Cafolla, who started this business in 1990 now grows, harvests and supplies seed of over 120 different species of native plants.

If you haven’t collected your own seed before, then make 2019 the year you start. It’s easy. Think about it for a moment of how many seeds simply fall from flowers and grow where they land.

For those of us looking at growing our own food this year, now is the time to start off the seedlings of many of our salad and vegetable crops. Anything which reduces our dependence on imported fruit and veg which has been laced with preservatives must be encouraged.

Holly McKeever Cairns of Brown Envelope Seeds in West Cork is adamant that we have gone too far down the road of replacing open pollinated, locally sourced seed with hybridized varieties.

“We have lost 95% of our seed varieties in Ireland and worldwide and, at the moment, Brown Envelope Seeds is one of only two vegetable seed producers in Ireland,” she says. “A sobering thought when you consider the need for genetic diversity in the face of unpredictable climate change. Today, the majority of crops under cultivation are grown with seed bred to suit unsustainable, high-input systems. We save between 200 and 250 varieties on the farm near Skibbereen which, in itself is a bank of genetic diversity but it also provides an array of flavours that are not readily available to us in shops. Things like round black radishes, wild Argentinian tomatoes, and pineapple-flavoured Physalis.”

F1 hybrids only last for one generation. In other words, Seed collected from the flowers or fruits will not come true to type. Rather they will be indistinct and unstable whereas open-pollinated seed will produce plants identical to the parent, getting stronger with each generation.

Holly, who is so passionate about this subject, has thrown her hat into this year’s local elections. She wants to end the situation where 75% of our seed varieties are owned by three companies.

“I would love if we could start a culinary plant breeding network using locally- produced seed whereby we breed vegetables for Michelin Star flavour.”

And you know what, she might just do it.

www.brownenvelopeseeds.com