Bristol gardeners get chance to swap the seeds they sow

Gardeners will take part in a city-wide seed-swap event at Windmill Hill City Farm, Bedminster, on March 21.

In its fifth year, Bristol Seed Swap is a whole-day event of workshops, talks, films, stalls and seed-swapping for gardeners, growers and allotmenteers.

There will also be the opportunity to enjoy the community garden and farm, eat at the cafe and go on free wildfood walks.

The event has been organised independently and voluntarily by local people. A donation is asked for on the door to cover the cost of running the event from 11am to 3pm.

Windmill Hill City Farm's garden team will be selling plants including herbs, fruit bushes and trees, seed potatoes and Comfrey liquid fertiliser. Other stallholders include Gardenshare Bristol, Buried Treasure from Knowle and Transition BS3.

The Heritage Seed Library has donated lots of unusual seeds including climbing French bean 'Kew Blue' and tomato 'Queen of Hearts', and 'Landrace' and rare seeds from the Irish Seedsaving Association and the Real Seed Company will be available for donations.

People can also bring their own seeds to add to the swap.

There will be workshops and films about seedsaving, how to and why, from a local and international perspective and a chance for children to plant seeds to take home.

Ruth O'Brien, one of the organisers, said: "Seed swaps are becoming more and more popular as people are realising how important our seeds are, and why pay for something that's free and locally produced?

"Anyone with an interest in growing plants should come along, even if you don't save seeds already."

For updates and more information, go to www.myspace.com/bristolseedswap or email bristolseedswap@yahoo.co.uk.