Seed Saving Circle 2025

[galina]

Information about cinnamon vine below.  Basically it is a yam, that produces both starchy mini yam aerial tubers on the plant after flowering and also big storage tubers in the ground.  Both are fully edible and nice tasting.  The flowers smell very nice too, but more like quality fabric softener than cinnamon (in my experience). 

https://www.uaex.uada.edu/yard-garden/resource-library/plant-week/cinnamon.aspx#:~:text=Cinnamon%20vine%2C%20so%20named%20because,weight%20up%20to%20a%20pound.

[markfield rover]

In haste .. hopefully the following..

CFB Box. Poletscka. Alice Whitis Pink.

DFB .Cupitano.

Pea.  Twelve Acre. Fairbeards Pariel.

Cress. Grandpa's.

Toms. First in the field ( it was!) Glacier. Rose de Berne. Mexican    Midget.  Peppermint. Peruvianum. Goldiana .

Cinnamon Vine . Mangle , Yellow Intermediate.

Flowers. Impomoea, Tutu. Four O'clock flower. Lucy's Starburst Marigolds. Viola ,Brush Strokes. Species Sweet Pea, Pink Tangier.
Cosmos, Sulphureus.

There should have been more peas , just was not their time.

[JanG]

JanG, I didn't  joined your seed saver group and I don't need anything but I would like to send your group  some  of my this tear Mayoral Blue Squash seeds to pass on if you wish. I got 4 decent sized squash and a smaller one ,they are out of the garden now and are inside in a cool room. If you can give me an idea how many seeds you could use I will get them to you. Canada post is currently on strike since last Thursday and not accepting anything for mailing.Last year it was 5 weeks. Let me know.XX Jeannine

Thank you very much, Jeanine. Having read abut your efforts to keep this variety going it will be an honour to be part of trying to ensure it lives on.

We are either seven or eight members. If you have lots of seeds then please send plenty for each member and I will happily divide them up and distribute.

We operate to an end of November deadline. With your postal strike and the time it takes for squash seeds to dry out it might well be that that is too soon for your seeds. Please send them anyway and I will either put them in the freezer for next year or, more likely, ask that anyone who wants to grow them next year should let me know and I'll post them out later but in time for growing. 

Thank you again, Jeannine. We look forward to receiving these very special seeds when the postal strike sorts itself out.

[JanG]

In haste .. hopefully the following..

CFB Box. Poletscka. Alice Whitis Pink.

DFB .Cupitano.

Pea.  Twelve Acre. Fairbeards Pariel.

Cress. Grandpa's.

Toms. First in the field ( it was!) Glacier. Rose de Berne. Mexican    Midget.  Peppermint. Peruvianum. Goldiana .

Cinnamon Vine . Mangle , Yellow Intermediate.

Flowers. Impomoea, Tutu. Four O'clock flower. Lucy's Starburst Marigolds. Viola ,Brush Strokes. Species Sweet Pea, Pink Tangier.
Cosmos, Sulphureus.

There should have been more peas , just was not their time.

That's great, MR. A lovely list. Both pea varieties are new to me so much appreciated. And so are all the tomatoes, come to that.

[JanG]

Tomatoes for the seed circle.

I've already mentioned and posted photos of Mila Orange (Russian, indeterminate, seeds from Jeannine and before that, Heritage Harvest Seeds) and Shimmer. Shimmer is a fairly recent commercially available variety, bred by Henk van der Velde who worked at Burpee Seeds in US. It is often sold as an F1 hybrid but I grew the ones in my photo from my own seed so I'm assuming the next generation will come true too. My original seed came from Simply Seeds


In addition I'd like to contribute:

Moldovan Green
OSU Blue
Sunviva
Violet Noir

Some notes:
Moldovan Green. As the name suggests it originates from Moldova from where seed as saved and distributed through the Seed Savers Handbook in US in 1998. It's a lovely beefsteak, green with yellowish streaking and excellent taste. It's a good short season variety and I grew it successfully outdoors. Seed from Jeannine.



OSU Blue. I love the anthocyanin colouring of dark tomatoes and this one is bigger than some and a real winner in my book. It's quite heavy cropping and tastes good. OSU stands for Oregon State University where this variety was experimentally developed by Jim Myers in the first years of this century. It's one of the earliest anthocyanin varieties. My original seed was from an exchange.



Sunviva This is a recent, blight resistant variety, bred by a team at Gottingen University, so very useful for outdoor growing. It has small, slightly oval yellow cherry fruit. The plants are very vigorous and it produces fruit prolifically. It canted to split but the taste is excellent. Seed from a swap, originally from Brown Envelope Seeds I think. It has an open source seed licence.



Violet Noir. I very much liked this variety which again came from Jeannine. It is a dusky coloured beefsteak and very productive for a large tomato. It was created in 1998 and further developed by Pascal Moreau, the Belgium breeder who also created Ananas Noire.

.

[galina]

Sunviva was one of the earliest ever seeds with an OSSI licence in Germany.  Naturally looking forward to growing them, Jan.  Your others look yummy too.  Violet Noir is a beauty.   

Much to look forward to from you also MR.  All of your peas have thrived so well here. 

[galina]

Here is the Sunviva information.  https://www.opensourceseeds.org/en

[juliev]

Hello everyone,

So many wonderful varieties being shared and even new crops (never heard of the cinnamon vine before)! I need a much bigger plot, polytunnel, some help and maybe an extra hundred years to be able to grow it all... How do you manage to keep so many varieties going?

Update on my list:

poppy (P Somniferum): white seeds Sokol (pale flowers)
                      dark flowers After Midnight (dark seeds)
I grew them in their own beds, as far away as I could to prevent crossing (a few off-types in the original seeds I had bought though).

Pea: Dwarf Grey Sugar pea
It was rough for the poor peas this year. The mixes did ok overall but the pure varieties I was trying to save didn't do as well... Thankfully I have enough seeds to grow them out again.

Tomatoes: I need to count the seeds and see what I can share.
I also grew Sgt Pepper and Sunviva this year and they did really well. My Sunviva seeds were from Seeds of Scotland, fruited early, vigorous plant and kept sending side shoots that kept on fruiting. Definitely a keeper!

peppers/chillies: Fingers crossed I'll have enough seeds to share.

French beans: TBC (I've got a lot of counting ahead of me!!!)

I haven't opened them yet but I should have:
Naked-seed squash (C. Pepo) Penelopa (original seeds from She Grow Veg) hand-pollinated for pure seeds
more info here https://theplantexplorer.com/shop/64-the-plant-explorer-seeds/1857-cucurbita-pepo-penelopa/

If you're interested in naked-seed pumpkins (but not a specific variety) I have also Penelopa X Dana and Dana X Penelopa/Dana/Kakai. I'm happy to send those separately to whoever wants to try them.

Jan, unfortunately it was the last of my Kakai seeds, having tried them two years in a row and not getting a single fruit from any of the plants...

Golden Flax

Amaranth Grain (originally the rainbow mix from Real Seeds)
I also tried a couple of popping types that grew really well (they were separate from the rainbow mix) but I'm not sure how much crossing could have happened there... Let me know if you're interested!

[juliev]

Debs, I am happy to grow your mystery peas. I grow most crops as mixes/populations so not knowing the name of the variety is not an issue.

To everyone:
As Jan mentioned (thank you for thinking of me!), I work mainly with seed mixes and have been sharing my excess seeds via a small seed library. This year, I expanded the project to a UK seed share project, inspired by this group, but focusing on creating diverse mixes for each crop type.

If you have excess seeds or off-types/crosses you usually get rid of, I would love to give them a chance in the seed share project (obviously happy to pay postage etc). You can send me a private message here or email me at seedshareuk@gmail.com to discuss further.

Jan, if this post is not ok in this thread, please remove it or let me know and I'll remove it.