Sow How-A Gardening Book With A Difference

So I'm often heard banging on about how important it is that we ensure we have future generations of gardeners, both professional and hobbyists. Our horticulture industry already is struggling to bring young people into it, due mainly to schools really not engaging with it as a serious career option, and many assuming it just involves grass cutting. 

 

Anyway I digress somewhat. Where, if you're interested in growing something, do you start?

Where's a simple, step by step instruction manual on growing from seed, that's modern, appeals to the urban and is led by design, rather than lots of words and someone your parents age in the photos?! So many gardening books written by experts are complex and quite hard as a beginner to work out what the basics are. Now I'm not deriding experts as my name is not Gove and personally I love a book written by someone who has spent 20 years studying one genus for example, but sometimes simple is what's needed. 

 

So a good couple of years ago I met Paul Matson, who at that point had just released a range of seeds called Sow How, each of which came with a beautifully designed card with all the instructions you might need, designed in an infographic type style. I thought they were brilliant, said so, and regularly pointed new gardeners to the range, which were mainly available in Bristol. When I met Paul he said the idea had come from being a beginner himself and wanting a seed packet that focussed on the beginner, in a way that was modern, designed and more infographic than words, but that also was affordable in case it all went wrong. 

 

In the time between then and now, Sow How has gone on to become a book, and for me it's one of the most exciting to hit the market this year. Now it's not exciting particularly because I need it, but it's exciting because it's somewhere I can send people, a resource that is not just beautiful and attractive to that younger audience, but is also completely trust worthy as Paul brought a grower in to the project to make sure the advice is right.

Many people make assumptions that there are no new hobbyist gardeners out there, but a new generation of garden bloggers and vloggers are proving that to be wrong. The average age of our Incredible Edible Bristol volunteers right now is around 26 and these are all people who want to learn, share and practice horticultural skills. Young people are gardening and this is a book for them, and anyone just setting out. I'm trying to decide who I'm buying it for at Christmas already!!

 

I received a copy of  Sow How but in no way did that influence my opinions-I am always going to love anything that supports young people to learn good horticultural skills!!

Seed sorting....

Today, in the light of every crazy thing that is going on in the world and despite that craziness driving me to the point almost of despair, I needed something to do. I couldn't go on the women's march as I'm still on nursing duty some of the time and so I decided to organise my seed collection. 

Now my collection of seeds is quite large. I hold the seeds for Incredible Edible Bristol and for the How to Garden course I'm about to start teaching, and I am lucky enough to get sent a fair few packets by kind folk who are either donating for the beds across the city, or asking me to trial things. That said, every year we see tray after tray planted out, donated to other projects or into our allotment of garden, so they all get used! Often also we donate seeds on to new community projects, school and youth groups, early years centres and more, and so in all honesty we can never have enough!!

And of course the collection is full of little packets of seed saved by others that I am given or are swapped. Beans, achoka, giant pumpkins, 1000 headed kale....

And of course there are the seeds of little oddities. New varieties I've never seen before. Gifted heirlooms from friends across the pond. Firm favourites I grow every year.

So today I sorted them into various piles. Seeds to be donated to Bristol Seed Swap, seeds for Incredible Edible and seeds for the garden and the allotment.

Then I sorted out the seeds saved from the Incredible Edible Bristol beds into little packets. Calendula, mallow, radish, kales, poppies and more all grown and saved right here in the city. 

 

There's strength in saving seeds. It's a quiet power that allows us to be in control of what we grow, and to ensure plants that have done really well are saved along with their genetic make up. It means we know where our seeds come from and how they have been saved and looked after. It means we can share our successes.

Of course across the globe we are seeing more and more farmers and food producers being stopped from saving their own seed and having to buy it from agricultural giants who control not just the seed but also the varieties that they stock. The amount of varieties that were grown of all crops were huge, but now we see farmers having far fewer varieties to chose from as the large seed companies stock only what is certain to grow or what is easy to store.  In order for seeds to be sold they need to be listed with Defra, and this costs meaning that fewer and fewer varieties are listed. This makes it all the more vital to save our own seeds, particularly of heritage or heirloom varieties and to support organisations such as the Heritage Seed Library who look after varieties that are no longer sold, but who, for a yearly donation will send you a selection to both grow and save the seed of. 

 

So if you've never saved seed, and you feel, as I did this morning, lacking in any power to do anything about the craziness in the world, decide to save some seeds. Lots are easy to save. Fennel, beans, peas, lettuces, calendula, nigella, parsley, are all easy , and you will inevitably then have enough to grow next year and to give away to friends or at your local Seed Swap. What a great way to counteract the madness!!