Southland Seed Savers

Membership and order form

MAY 2010 Wanted all seeds in by the 30th of June please so we can publish our catalogue in July

25 August 2009 - Catalogue Lists out now see below.

Remember these all have been saved by home gardeners who have done their best- strike rate of the seeds will vary greatly. Kindly let us know which ones you had no luck with so we can delete that line (note each date is kept separate under a different number for this purpose) You will note some seeds are old but we would prefer someone to at least try them, especially if they are rare, just in case some germinate rather than throwing them out! Thanks for your help.
Please get as many varieties as you can manage as we are short of seed savers so we can keep this collection young and alive. You always eat all the smaller ones and keep your best 2-3 plants for seed. If you would like advice on seed saving or would like to attend a workshop in your area let us know. Please send back some of your excess so we can continue to share these around.
We meet regularly to packet up the seeds and we always welcome extra help. Please contact us if you would like to join us in this important work.

We are unsure how to rate some seeds so welcome suggestions about what seeds are special and we should always insure we have some in our seed network and which ones grow like weeds and don't need special attention. Jot down your thoughts and let us know so we can provide better service. Guardians are ones we presently think are worth keeping going and are in short supply, the standard list is ones we believe are more common and we have good stock at present.

Happy Gardening Everyone!

Adam,Robyn,Yvonne & Diana

2009/10 Catalogue:

List One Plentiful

List Two Need Guardians

Lost Seeds Please send us some (14 varieties still missing) Thank you for those who sent 5 varieties from the list last year.

WANTED Do you know where we can source these?

Exiting New Initiative 2008 The South Coast Environment Society is supporting a mission to bulk up all our present stocks of Southern NZ vegetable seeds to the point where they are out of danger of extinction and able to be sold through out the south as organic and/or locally saved Southern NZ seeds. We need to lease some small parcels of land near Riverton for the project. The South Coast Environment Society moved at their last meeting to support this by applying for a fundng boost for this to go ahead e.g. sustainable management fund, business start etc. Adam Guyton is keen to lead this project but needs all of us to help bulk up these seeds. We hope to be able to create a couple of part time jobs eventually...If you would like to see this project succeed get in touch with us through the Environment Centre and let us know how you can help.

September 10th 2007 Otago seeds now in our care We have been given the Otago Seed Savers seeds for us to manage for the two provinces. With team work between both provinces we hope to build a strong resource for our joint bio-region.

Suggested change re: membership Our subscription now an annual donation rather than a 'one off' $5 life membership. This is to keep our membership base current and active. We have 220 members but most seem to be inactive and we haven't heard from them for serveral years! So if you are interested in continuing as an active member plese email us or register your continued interest by sending a donation (seeds, stamps, money) and indicate that you still would like to be an active member.

Likewise if you are no longer interested we would appreciate you letting us know.

July 07: Kay Baxter called in to the Centre this month. She as a very well known heritage seed saver who founded Koanga Gardens in the North island. She would like their well distributed catalogue to be representative of the whole of NZ and hope the Christchurch and Southland seed networks can submit seed for sale in the future. We will look at also stocking their nothern seeds for sale in the Centre as most will do well in Southland. This will enable local gardeners to buy NZ seeds.

We would also like experienced seed savers to adopt rare seeds for multiplying, please contact us if you have these skills. We are happy for anyone to buy the more common varieties to start seed saving.

The seeds in list one are available 50c a packet donation, a fraction of the price of commercial seeds, because there is no guarantee they will all germinate for a variety of reasons: They have no pesiticides, preservatives added. More care is needed to germinate them than commercial seeds, they will need optimum conditions to be sucessful. They are saved by a wide variety of people and the quality and age of seed can vary greatly. Please let us know if a seed does not work for you so we can get our expert to try and save it. Help us keep the resource viable by learning how to save seeds and returning good quality seeds for next years catalogue.

History and information
This group was established in 1999 to develop a network whereby growers can share non-hybrid seeds that grow well in Southland.

This will ensure the survival of these seeds that have been carefully nurtured for generations. They are threatened by commercialism, Genetic Engineering, restrictions from seed companies and/or biotech companies. Hundreds of species are lost each year worldwide as seeds from hybrid food plants are unable to be saved.

The Seed Savers offer free workshops on how to save seeds. We are part of a nationwide network of Seed Saving Groups. Home gardeners from throughout N.Z. are sending us their seeds to trial in Southland.

We advertise ourselves by having stalls at relevant Southland wide events.

There are now 19 seed saver groups around N.Z. We are a band of home gardeners protecting the legacy brought to N.Z. by our ancestors. These plants have fed us down through generations. We welcome you all and hope the legacy N.Z. has will be protected for generations to come. When you consider it we are what we eat. Lets all keep it pure and pass on these varieties for future generations to enjoy too.

We hope all gardeners will be able to return some seed for the 2008 list which needs to be with us by mid July 2008 so we can compile a list to go out early enough for spring ordering. If you have seed that isn’t dry enough to post by then please send a note of what you will be sending before above date and send seed when dried off enough to pack.

We would also looking for people with skills to 'adopt a seed' that we have little of and bulk it up over a couple of years by saving all the seed possible. We can then make it available to the network once again. As some of our stocks are now a couple of years old it is important to get fresh seed each year of even the common varities. So whether rare or common the returning of seed keeps this network alive.

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