The search is on for unique veg seeds in Shropshire

Do you have Ray’s butter bean, Grandpa’s Cress or Mrs Taylor’s Red Pear hiding in your garden shed or greenhouse? A charity is calling on Shropshire gardeners to find and share their unusual edible heirlooms in a special #SeedSearch.

If you’ve got an intriguing heritage seed that’s been passed down the generations, or a little-known vegetable variety that you can’t buy in the shops - the Heritage Seed Library wants to know about them.

The Library, part of sustainable gardening charity Garden Organic, is calling on gardeners to search their veg plots, sheds, local libraries and community archives to find and share special heritage seeds and stories – to safeguard them for the future.

The #SeedSearch is part of a two-year project - ‘Sowing your Seeds: Heritage Crops for a Resilient Future’ – supported with a £174,291 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Made possible thanks to National Lottery players, the project will conserve and pass on precious community vegetable varieties.

“With an increasingly unpredictable climate and the loss of both wild and cultivated biodiversity, this important project will help us share knowledge of local and heirloom crops growing in vegetable plots across Shropshire and the Midlands,” says Catrina Fenton, head of the Heritage Seed Library.

“We’re incredibly grateful to The National Lottery Heritage Fund and for National Lottery players for making this project possible. In our lifetime, we’ve lost many hundreds of vegetable varieties, grown for generations by families and communities. The Heritage Seed Library addresses this by maintaining a living collection of vegetables, regularly sown and grown to maximise adaptability and viability.

“Working in partnership with community and individual growers, this vital project will help us share knowledge of heritage crops, many of which will have been selected and bred locally for their special characteristics and resilience.

“We’d like to learn more about under-represented plants that are thriving locally, as well as finding out and sharing the stories of the people behind them, including their culinary and cultural significance.”

Celebrating its 50th year in summer 2025, the Heritage Seed Library has pioneered the conservation of heritage and heirloom seeds with its 800+ National Collection, with seed shared with members to grow and enjoy.

Do you have a local variety you think the Heritage Seed Library should know about? Or would you like to find out more about how to get involved? Get in touch via its short online survey at https://bit.ly/HSLseedsearch.

What is a heritage seed?

Catrina Fenton, head of the Heritage Seed Library, outlines what they’re looking for when it comes to heritage seeds and heirloom veg…

Heritage is a broad term, often interchangeable with heirloom (which is more commonly used in the US). When a seed is a ‘heritage seed’, it typically indicates it’s a local variety with connections to a particular person, place, culture or history.

Your vegetable seed may be a known historic variety - but it may not be that old and has simply been grown/saved for a long time, is not widely available or can no longer be bought in shops.

Or your interesting seed could be a newer, global crop that’s thriving locally. Over time individuals have developed crops for their special characteristics. These include those adapted to local growing conditions, and which reflect the rich diversity of communities that have made the UK their home.

Finally, your seed may be a family heirloom, given its name by the person who grew it or valued for its culinary use. This project hopes to find and represent the social, historical and cultural significance of these varieties for our communities now and into the future.

For more information visit gardenorganic.org.uk.