Seed Swaps - on the radio!

[Flummery]

Radio 4's You & Yours - 12.00 noon - just heard a trailer about amateur gardeners swapping seeds to avoid the EU laws. This means us! The programme can be a bit whiney but my ear was drawn to this. Anyone who misses it can listen again but I think you'll have to sit through the whole prog.

[mapcr77]

Just turned it on and missed it! Did anyone listen to it?

[Flummery]

Yes. Interesting. Particularly that the EU was able to provide a spokeswoman - a Greek lady with wonderful English - but DEFRA wouldn't provide a speaker or even a written statement. Bleddy pathetic. The reasons stated for the allowable 'list' of seeds was guarantee that they'd be true to type and quality etc. Fair enough but we all read last year about the appalling germination rate from some very famous companies didn't we? So much for quality. Naturally the programme didn't resolve anything but airing the problem has to be a good thing.

[Steve(spt)]

I nearly posted about this, but I thought I might be the only one who is tuned into Radio 4.

[muckdiva]

I heard it. Thought for an awful moment they were going to say seed swapping was going to be outlawed or something, but the report ended on a quite positive note. I love swapping 'illegal' varieties - it's my (small) stand against authority!

[Flummery]

I nearly posted about this, but I thought I might be the only one who is tuned into Radio 4.

You mean there are OTHER radio stations?

[veg4681]

I heard it. Thought for an awful moment they were going to say seed swapping was going to be outlawed or something, but the report ended on a quite positive note. I love swapping 'illegal' varieties - it's my (small) stand against authority!

Is there anyway we can find out which variety are illegal (presumably just means that they're not registered with the costly fee)? Not that I'm bothered, just want to make more effort chasing after the illegal ones for saving and spreading the seeds .

[muckdiva]

I tend to go by what's in the HSL catalogue, or what's been passed on from friends/allotmenteers as having been grown in the area for years. I wouldn't know for definite though.