Excess Virtual Seed Parcel Seeds - ideas needed

[VirginVegGrower]

Come on folks - vote with your feet!

[Jeanied]

How about Childrens' Centres? Do they still exist? They do activities with mums and kiddies and healthy eating / growing things seems to fit the bill.

[FROSTYFRECKLE]

How about donating seeds to disabled gardening group? Isn't Thrive a disabled gardening group? Off the top of my head there is a gardening group for ex-military in Ayrshire called Hollybush, there must be similar throughout the UK. They garden all-year round. Community Gardens - garden all year round. Eh, Urban Roots in Toryglen, Glasgow or there is a place out by Thornliebank where residents have taken over waste ground and back closes and started growing veggies (to show children where food comes from and give free veggies to OAPs). Grapes will know of similar groups local to them.

[Helgalush]

I too was thinking along the lines of gardening groups for disabled and disadvantaged people, I was looking at the Thrive website and they hold contacts for 900 groups in the UK I believe so may be able to suggest groups we could send them to. Alternatively I know that some of the mental health charities run allotment groups, like this one: Mindgrowers Allotment Project
Maybe they could make good use of some of them.

I also like the idea of care homes, nursing homes and residential centres. My MIL works at a care home and said that they have a gardener who would like to start a veggie patch (the last I heard of that though was a year ago so no idea if it got off the ground and whether they have money for seeds etc).

Failing that, I like the idea of competitions for seeds, or the SAE for pot luck ones.

[FROSTYFRECKLE]

Mr Frosty has just reminded me that Headway Ayrshire run a gardening club (year round). Headway is UK wide.

[zazen999]

Shall I pack say, 5 up - and then we can randomly select a few things and vote on it? It will take me a while to select and pack them so at least they will be ready for sending then.

Meanwhile....we may come to a collective agreement...

This could be a good feature for the mag....

[northepaul]

I was going to say very similar to the above, locally MIND run a nursery which is very successful...
Mayfield Nurseries

[marchogaeth]

I'd like to advise against schools and go for the sort of community groups people are talking about. Too often, in schools, the person who says yes isn't the person who is expected or experienced in using seeds. There is a very limited group of plants that can be grown effectievly around the school year unless it's also a community project. Maybe Zazen you could tell us what is least work for you.

[zazen999]

Maybe Zazen you could tell us what is least work for you.

The least work for me is to get the numbers down so that when I'm picking, I'm not riffling through seeds that in the majority - Grapes will probably not want.

Otherwise, I'm picking 4 collections as we speak, for distribution...

[donnakebab]

Perhaps there are some charities that offer gardening services for the elderly or disabled in their own gardens. Or is there somewhere outside of the UK with similar climate that would be able to use them. Maybe there is a Parish council somewhere that wants to start growing community veg patches like the one we talked about here recently (can't remember the name of the place). That way whole families may be able to get involved and some free seeds might be an incentive.

It would be a shame if they went to waste and as long as they are appreciated by somebody I don't see why there should be an objection. It's better than having to bin them.

[zazen999]

Or even worse, they just don't get used.

I think VVG's idea is also good; maybe of Grapes taking them, growing on and donating to local gardening groups....spreading the love that way.

[mothhawk]

I too was thinking along the lines of gardening groups for disabled and disadvantaged people, I was looking at the Thrive website and they hold contacts for 900 groups in the UK I believe so may be able to suggest groups we could send them to. Alternatively I know that some of the mental health charities run allotment groups, like this one: Mindgrowers Allotment Project
Maybe they could make good use of some of them.

There's something similar to that near me called A Place To Grow

I don't have any seeds to swap and would happily pay a fiver for a lucky dip mixed bag.

[singleseeder]

Thinking outside the box - I know that Workaid refurbs garden tools and sends them abroad, would they be interested/allowed to send seeds?

Or.......... putting the seeds on a well known auction site and donating the proceed to charity.

[veggiechicken]

We did discuss the internet auction option at the meet-up with the seed trug and Zaz last weekend. Selling seeds at auction involves someone in lots of work, probably for very little financial return. I'm not volunteering to do it and wouldn't expect anyone else to either!
I don't know for sure, but I believe there are restrictions on sending seeds outside the EU.

[zazen999]

Thinking outside the box - I know that Workaid refurbs garden tools and sends them abroad, would they be interested/allowed to send seeds?

Or.......... putting the seeds on a well known auction site and donating the proceed to charity.

That was exactly my thought - but it's the opening of a separate account and the monitoring of it and the actual accounting [what happens if the seeds get lost, what happens if there needs to be a refund yada yada yada]....