We can all appreciate a fine garden. From the colour and the scent of a flower – an “embellishment of life”, as Holmes told Watson, from which the goodness of providence could be deduced – to the sweet taste of a fresh strawberry, and the hum of a busy bee, gardens excite our senses. But we rarely consider the humble seed from which they germinate.

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A similar thing can be said about our food. We all eat several times a day, but how often do we think about the origins of our fruit and veg; or, indeed, about the seeds which we consume with them?

 

Saving Seed is a tribute to seeds and to those who save them. To those tiny things we often overlook, but which are so full of energy and potential, of nutrition, of past and of future. It is also about the need to nurture them, tend to them, save them, share them, and even flavour them – for our own wellbeing and for that of the planet.

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The garden acompanying the exhibition has been grown, as all gardens are, from seed, and we want to pay homage to the beauty and diversity of the seeds we have grown by showing you what they have become and honour the people who save them and care for them.

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From seed, to garden, to plate, to you and your community, and back to the soil to begin again, we welcome you to engage with seed saving.