About us
Why are we doing this?
We are losing huge numbers of seed varieties from all sorts of crops, in Britain and globally, as growers are persuaded to spend money on mainstream catalogue seeds. These are often less appropriate to regional conditions, are dependent for good crops on chemical inputs and are less resilient to variable weather. F1 seeds also remove the option of saving your own seeds as they will not breed true. GMO seeds are often patented so it is illegal to save them.
Who are we?
Everyone involved in the Seed Swap is a volunteer. We don't necessarily have special skills or talents just a determination to share our love of seeds and growing. We meet regularly over zoom which makes it flexible and work as a team to come up with ideas and plans. On the day you will find us with allocated roles chosen by ourselves. Everyone can do as little or as much as they want to.
Would you like to get involved?
We are always in planning stage for future years events and would like to hear from you if you are able to contribute in any way.
Get involved on the day in 2023
The Seed Swap runs on the goodwill and energy of our volunteers, many of whom have come back year after year as they enjoy it so much.
Help organise the event, we have informal meetings/ get togethers, These will be listed as events on our Facebook page and publicised on other pages and groups where possible. All welcome.
We can always use more people especially as we plan to expand the event.
If you share our aims and have some time we would love to have a bigger group of people to make sure the Bristol Seed Swap keeps going, and were it possible we would love to expand into a more educational role during the rest of the year, teaching people how to save seeds. If you are interested, talk to one of us at the Seed Swap or email brisseedswapvols@gmail.com
The future
The Bristol Seed Swap is an annual event, but as an organisation we are now expanding to do educational work, screen relevant films and maintain an informative presence on Facebook and other social media throughout the year. We hope this website will be part of that, a resource for gardeners and seed savers.