Lost and Found in E17: Field Study's Man in E17 gets some seeds together

Saturday, 2 March 2013

Field Study's Man in E17 gets some seeds together

Field Study's Man in E17 has travelled far and wide recently and in so doing he has enjoyed much of the finest life can offer, not least the warmth and generosity of friends and family. We have been trying to prise open the tiny black box of his hive mind to find out more about his journeys beyond the forest, marsh and valley of hereabout. His return home was a comfortable experience, generally without incident, but for a brief flight of fancy when he imagined himself to be a bee and attempted a forage from a flower that turned out not to be a flower. The field student may have plunged headlong into an ornamental moulding of a flower on the threshold of home. What an 'idyssey'. This is the theory subject to a painstaking process of deciphering his vertiginously unreliable memory. Meanwhile the field student finds himself back in E17 with his fat batteries recharged and so raring to go underground with a medley of seeds for the new growing season.

The seeds have been saved and sourced via provenance local and not so local and our awareness of issues about seeds was increased last night at an event organised by the Community Food Growers Network, at the Hornbeam Environment Centre and Forest Recycling Project. "Freeing Seeds From Corporate Control" was a seed swap and a discussion led by Patrick Mulvany (UK Food Group) and Ru Litherland (Organiclea) on the corporatization of seeds.

I (who?) confess to not taking any seeds to swap and also to taking some seeds from an assortment remaining at the end of the evening. In my defence, there were complex circumstances concerning ownership of and communication about 'our' seed medley that made me hesitate in sorting some of 'our' seeds for swapping. I hope to remedy or redeem this stinginess in various ways.

Below is a map/plan and a collection of images of the allotment where most of the seeds will be cultivated and some of their progeny harvested and saved for sharing. The photographs were taken on 21st February and we may present a similar post in March/April (and monthly there on) showing the progress of the seeds.