I blame Sparrow100

I left after several year's membership. A bit disillusioned by the seeds that were being offered. I like seeds to have a long history in the UK - not really interested in Asian seeds and there seemed to be a lot of these.
Whilst I support the HSL in principle I felt I would prefer to spend my money at RealSeeds.

I too find HSL list with lots of things I knew from my place in India. not just HSL, for that matter any specialist seed companies with veg lists from tomatoes to pumpkins..initially it attracted me, but i have access to much wider selection.

HSL doing other varieties too like peas etc, but its not the only place to look for.though I appreciate what they do, I have better grow for myself first.


about seed saving isolation part, I somehow understood major part of HSL crop are self polinated. you are a person of just grow many plants of one variety and growing in your own space, isolation could be less hassle. hand polination is away ,but I never want to do it, I rather prefer to avoid cross pollinating elements.

The HSL 2017 seed list can be found here:

https://hsl.gardenorganic.org.uk/seedlist

What, what, what?? MY fault???? MINE???? Tsssss.

I'm in HSL and a seed guardian. I may have mentioned it one or a hundred times...I bought myself a hat when they let me in. It's a bit Indiana Jonesy and I like it a lot.

Most of the list for seed guardians (the orphan list) is made up of peas, beans and tomatoes. But I mentioned how much I love squashes, so now I save squashes for them - this year is Sucrette again, which is really tasty. 10 plants, hopefully 2,000+ seeds to return, though I thought that last year and it was a slug-based disaster. I'd love to save biannual crops for them, but I just can't rig up that much isolated space on the plot.

In terms of ease of isolation, I've committed to making sure every flower is individually bagged the day before they open and female flowers hand pollinated with the male ones very early in the morning when they are most viable & while waving away interested bees. Then I eat the male flowers. Their job is done and it's shame to waste them...

They are tightening up a lot on selecting seed for return and isolation distances for seed saving. Some of the tomatoes are also potato leaf varieties and need bagging. ALso French beans are advised to be 10m apart for example as I think there have been cases of crossed beans being sent back to HSL. That's fine if you're saving for yourself, but not if you're saving for something like this where the whole point is trying to keep a variety distinct and true.

I think it's fun though. And I love that they've pandered to my squash obsession.

I do the members' experiments too - this year I am signed up for the Blooms for Bees and tomatillo growing. Blooms for Bees is a citizen science project looking at what colour flowers bees prefer, if any. I've got 3 shades of dahlia mignon to grow and have to monitor bee activity on them about once a fortnight from June/July-October.

Sorry, that turned out to be really long!

Its as if you're obsessed / possessed

Thanks sparrow100, really interesting and useful.