Allotment Stuff > Swap Shop
Covid-19 Seed requests
JanG:
Quite a lot of us live in UK though and can happily exchange seeds!
Premier Seeds seem to have kept a huge range of seeds going in the last few months even though they've apparently had difficulty resourcing a few. I've bought quite a lot from them recently and nothing I've wanted has been unavailable.
Obelixx:
Exactly - and long may such friendly seed exchanges continue.
We do it here in the garden club and plant swaps between members and friends too. All perfectly normal and legal.
However, it is neither legal, nor safe nor clever to risk spreading pathogens between countries, regions and continents. Just look at what box blight has done to classic UK gardens, or what phytopthora is doing to rhodos and azaleas or xylella is doing to millions of hectares of olive groves in Europe....
Why would any intelligent, moral person risk those or any other pathogens spreading to other countries and eco systems?
JanG:
I guess it depends upon how wide a community you feel yourself to belong to. Seeds as far as I know can be exchanged freely between different countries in Europe which are somewhat further apart than say England and France. Personally I like to feel part of a European community in spite of new restrictions against activities and exchanges which were deemed perfectly acceptable a few months ago.
As far as I’m aware plant diseases which have had such regrettable effects have rarely been transmitted by seeds. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
If the great Victorian plant hunters had been unprepared to collect seeds from other places, our gardens would certainly not be the glorious places they can be now!
Paulh:
The RHS sets out the present position in the UK here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/importing-plants-fruit-vegetables-or-plant-material-to-the-uk#contents.
This has a link through to the DEFRA website where you will see that just about every seed is regulated on import and some (like True Seed of Potato) are prohibited.
Obelixx:
Jan G. It's law, like it or not.
The EU countries are in a single market and can exchange seeds and plants between them. When I buy plants at the GC or in a supermarket the label always has a phytosanitary certificate reference no so I know the supplier has been following the rules.
The UK has voted to leave that single market and not being able to exchange seeds commercially or individually is one of the consequences.
It has been illegal to send or receive unregulated seeds to/from the USA and Canada for years.
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