EXPLORING WELSH DIMENSIONS OF FOOD AND GROWING

By Poppy Nicol, Global Gardens Project Coordinator

On the 21st March 2025, I facilitated an Egin event Exploring Welsh heritage dimensions of food and growing. Hosted at Cathay’s Community Centre in Cardiff, 15 people joined for an afternoon focussed around a topic I’m passionate about: seed-saving. Attendees included representatives and volunteers from a number of local community growing projects including Global Gardens, Grow Cardiff and Green Soul.

Seed-saving enthusiast Adam Alexander joined us as a key note speaker to talk about his work around seed, with a focus on varieties with a connection to South Wales. I invited Adam because of his passion for seed-saving and his experience of cultivating varieties with a special connection to South Wales.

Once a documentary film-maker and now a prolific seed-saver, Adam also writes books - mainly about seed! The Seed Detective published in 2022 was awarded Radio 4 Programme Book of the Year. The Accidental Seed Heroes is hot-off the press, published in Spring 2025 and explores plant breeding happening across the world. As Adam says in this new book:

“ We all become accidental seed heroes when we choose to sow locally cultivated seeds and eat locally grown crops.”

From his 1-acre small-holding garden in South-East Wales, Adam grows over 150 different vegetable varieties. As well as sharing these varieties locally (he brought along a number of seeds to share at the event!), Adam is a Heritage Seed Library Seed Guardian. The Heritage Seed Library maintains the national collection of heritage and heirloom vegetables and aims to conserve vegetable varieties that are not widely available. Seed Guardians have an essential role within the HSL, growing and safeguarding varieties and producing seed for the national collection. Currently, there are 185 Seed Guardians working across the UK.

Adam explained how he came to the realisation following a discussion with global renowned plant breeder Carol Deppé that he qualifies as a “backyard breeder" since the decisions he makes about the seeds he grows means the crops he is growing are changing. As he passionately reflects, saving seed enables us to “carry the seeds of our place in the world and our culture.”

South Wales Varieties

After sharing a vegan cawl soup (recipe link here), Adam launched into a whistle-stop tour of his work as a seed-saver. Adam spoke about how we can build resilience into our food system by breeding diversity into the local crops we grow. Adam introduced a number of varieties he has been saving with some connection to South Wales…

Graham’s Tom Thumb Tomato

First up was Graham’s Tom Thumb Tomato, a Cardiff ‘gardener’s variety’ thought to have been cultivated in Cardiff for the last 80 years (the last 40 by someone called Graham, who Adam acquired the seed from). Adam recommended we all try grow Graham’s Tom Thumb because it is “delicious, locally adapted and part of a story of Welsh heritage”. Adam has grown the Graham’s Tom Thumb Tomato on and sent it on to the Heritage Seed Library for accession. It is now also being grown and distributed via the Wales Seed Hub ( a network of seed producers saving seed across Wales using agro-ecological practices sold via a centralised hub).

District Nurse Borlotti Bean

Second on the list of recommended local varieties was the District Nurse Borlotti Bean, so called because it was grown by a District Nurse in Cardiff! According to Adam, the Borlotti bean was likely to have been brought over to the UK by Italian immigrants following World War Two. In turn, the Borlotti is thought to have probably derived from the Lamon variety- the very first drying bean brought to the shores of Europe from the Americas by Spanish Conquistador Cortés, eventually making it’s way to a Bishop called Lamon in the Veneto region of Italy. An example of how seeds carry stories of culture and global connection.

Brecon Black

Third up is what Adam describes as: “one of the most important crops culturally in South Wales.”

Brecon Black Runner bean was a variety grown in the mining towns and villages in South Wales. Whilst not a show bean in terms of the lengths of the beans (a feature uniquely favoured by UK allotment growers apparently!), it is an excellent bean both for fresh harvesting and storing.

Whilst around the world, most people grow runner beans as drying beans, in the UK, we seem to favour harvesting the beans fresh - perhaps because the wet, cold autumns can prevent ripening of the bean seeds for drying. However, Adam recommends giving the Brecon Black a go both for eating fresh off the vine and as a drying bean.

Llanover Pea

The final featured crop with links to South Wales was the Llanover Pea - so called because it was cultivated at the Llanover estate near Brecon. However, it is thought to have originated from Germany, brought over by an ex-prisoner of war who, following the end of World War One, returned to marry his love whom he met whilst imprisoned at the prisoner of war camp housed on the estate. More recently, the supply of the Llanover pea was destroyed due to flooding. Luckily by that point the Heritage Seed Library had some of these seeds, thanks to the seed-saving work of Adam so they were able to reintroduce it to the Llanover walled garden. The Llanover Pea grows around 2 metres tall and is a “workman-like pea.” This variety is also now available via the Wales Seed Hub.

However, Adam noted that it is not his favourite pea, suggesting that nothing can beat a delicious sounding Catalan Pea that grows up to 3 metres tall!

Photos by Adam Alexander (clockwise top left to right: 1. Graham’s Tom Thumb, 2. District Nurse Borlotti Bean, 3. Llanover pea, 4. Brecon Black - bean and vine).

Babuschka Red Pepper

Finally, Adam tantalised our taste buds with a description of a red pepper with “thick, sweet-fleshed” and a fruity flavour that gives a little heat. Since encountering the fruit in the Ukraine from a local Babushka back-garden breeder 22 years ago, he has been growing the peppers outside in in South Wales, selecting out for deliciousness, early fruiting and those plants that grow well outside. Another tasty option to bring some deliciousness to South Wales!

Open Pollinated and Open Source Seed

Open pollinated seed varieties refers to pollination that occurs by insect, bird, wind, humans, or other natural mechanisms. According to Adam, it means that crops have ‘flex’ - genetic diversity that enables them to adapt to changing local climates. Open source seed refers to seed that is not patented or licensed and free to share in the public domain - “an approach that allows and encourages other breeders to use new cultivars tin their own breeding programmes without recourse to patent protection or licensing” (excerpt from The Accidental Seed Heroes, p3). Adam cherishes seed “as a common resource that all the world should be able to access freely."

According to Adam, successful seed-savers need to practice three key thing: 1. observation, 2. curiosity and 3. selection. He concluded, when you grow and save seeds, you are creating varieties. Accidental crosses can happen and accidental seed heroes can be made! So keep growing and keep sowing. Adam also recommended a number of places to source seeds including: the Heritage Seed Library , the Wales Seed Hub, Real Seeds, Vital Seeds and Tamar Organics.

(Sketch by Global Gardens artist in resident Nick Minardi)

Building resilience in our local food systems through seed

After Adam’s talk, over a cup of tea and slice of vegan Bara Brith (recipe link here), we discussed how we can build resilience in our local food system and the role of seeds. A number of common themes emerged…

• There was a clear sense of the importance of cultivating local varieties and the need for more seed production in South Wales.

• Attendees were keen to build confidence in seed-saving - such as via talks with experienced seed-savers and opportunities for hands-on experience.

• There was a sense of the importance of building local networks to knowledge exchange or seed exchange.

• Opportunities for seed sharing in the local community were also highlighted - whether via seed swaps, seed-sharing stations or seed give aways.

• Supporting organisations and companies producing open pollinated, open source seed was identified as important - such as the Heritage Seed Library, the Wales Seed Hub, Real Seeds, Vital Seeds and Tamar Organics.

• So too was the collecting of seed-saving stories - such as the story of the Llanover Pea and Graham’s Tom Thumb Tomato.

• Finally, the importance of community growing spaces in supporting the development of seed-saving skills and locally produced seed was highlighted. In turn this requires local authority support for community growing projects to survive and thrive. Improving access to land and the infrastructure and fertility amendments required were also highlighted as important points supporting community growing project resilience.

What are the next steps we can take for building local resilience through saving seed?

We then discussed actions for building local resilience through seed saving that we could take…

• Growing to save seed and producing more seed locally.

• Recruiting local "Seed Saving Champions” who can mentor fledgling seed-savers.

• Creating channels for seed-y communication - such as “Seedy WhatsApp” channels

• Creating hyper-local seed sharing networks and improving communications so people know where community growing groups and how to get involved.

• Initiating more hyper-local seed-swaps and seed-sharing spaces and enhancing the the annual Cardiff Seed Swap.

• Recipe sharing and chef collaboration so the deliciousness of some crops can be fully appreciated!

• Improving access to land and infrastructure so more people can get involved in food growing and seed-saving.

Conclusion

A huge thanks to DTA Wales for supporting this event, to Adam Alexander for sharing his passion and to our local Egin facilitator Lisa Williams. This event is part of the Egin Spring series - do check out other events happening across Wales. If you’d like to learn more about seed-saving visit the the UK & Ireland Seed Saving Programme website. And they have a UK wide seed saving gathering in October at Machynlleth!