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09 September 2025

Beginners Seed Saving in Powys

Buying local veg (or, even better, growing your own) is an obvious contribution to a sustainable lifestyle. But have you ever asked where the seeds needed to grow it come from? In fact nearly all of the vegetable seed used by UK growers and gardeners is produced abroad – much of it in China, Africa and Eastern Europe. This not only adds ‘seed miles’ to the crop but endangers food security and genetic diversity.

If you have space in your garden or allotment, it’s not difficult to save seeds for yourself - it saves you money too and can be great fun. Start with something easy such as peas or tomatoes, where it’s not a big step from growing an edible crop to producing seed. With tomatoes, the seed is ready when the fruit is ready to eat. With peas, you just need to leave the pods on the plant for another few weeks until the pods have turned creamy brown and brittle. Neither of these crops are promiscuous – they don’t usually cross with other varieties – so the seed you save should give you plants that are just like the parent. Herbs such as dill and coriander and salad leaves such as rocket and cress are also very easy to save. You might be surprised how well your own home-saved seed does when you sow it the next year – it’s as if it already feels at home.

If you haven’t the space or time for seed saving, particularly for more difficult crops such as brassicas and alliums, you can look for locally grown seed. The Wales Seed Hub (www.seedhub.wales) is a good place to start. It is a cooperatively run seed company with growers around Wales, three of them in Powys. The Hub try to sell traditional Welsh varieties and other varieties that do well in the often challenging Welsh climate – and all the seed is produced in Wales. Local varieties include the Llanover pea which has a Welsh history dating back to the First World War, and the French bean ‘Machynlleth’ which came from an allotment holder in the Dyfi Valley who had been saving the seed for years.

Llanover Pea – an old Welsh variety that produces large peas which are sweet and delicious – seed from the Wales Seed Hub is produced in Powys.

Varieties such as these may perform much better in gardens than modern varieties which are bred for commercial growers supplying the supermarkets and, equally important, keeping them in cultivation preserves their genetic diversity for the future.

Tilly harvests seed of the mustard ‘Purple Frills’ at Cân y Pridd Market Garden near Sarn 

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