How Seedy Sunday works

An introduction for first-time visitors

By Lindy Sharpe

Where can you find a District Nurse, a Nun's Belly Button, a Lazy Housewife, a Fat Lazy Blonde and a Drunken Woman all in the same room? If you suggested a brothel, you're wrong.

In fact, they are all traditional varieties of garden vegetables (the first three are climbing beans, the last two lettuces), and they and many others, equally picturesque, are to be found at Seedy Sunday, the community seed swap that takes place every February in Brighton and Hove. And just in case you have the impression that the people who named vegetables in the past were uniformly scatological, there are descriptive and romantic names too: Black Valentine is another bean, Bull's Blood is a beetroot, and, poignantly, Cherokee Trail of Tears is a climbing bean reportedly so valued by the tribe of the same name that they took it with them when the were driven from their homelands. It now grows happily in southern England.

The event includes talks, demos and films - but seeds are still the stars

Seedy Sunday has been taking place every year since 2002, and has now expanded to include talks, demonstrations and films on saving and growing seed, as well as on wider issues such as local food and biodiversity. But the stars of the show are still the seeds, thousands of them, in little brown envelopes, with the names (or sometimes just a description - 'Lovely little yellow tomato, don't know the name') written on the outside.

Seeds are provided by the growers

These seeds are provided by the people who have grown them. Seedy Sunday volunteers and other gardeners donate saved seeds which are bagged up before the event. Some people bring jam jars full of seeds to the event where volunteers patiently bag and label them while others bring the seeds ready bagged and labeled with some growing instructions.  The seeds come in all shapes and sizes with stories attached!

Seeds are swapped not sold

Many of the old varieties available at the Seedy Sunday are not Listed (see Why seed swapping is important for an explanation of this eccentric regulation), so it is against the law to buy and sell them, but perfectly legal to grow them. Consequently, the seeds are not for sale (and you will not find them in commercial catalogues). There is an entry charge of £1 at the door and visitors are asked either to swap seed packets or to make a donation of 50p per packet to cover the costs of organizing the swap.