Howdy gardeners!

Things are progressing well with Otepoti Urban Organics, and we look forward to building on existing projects in the coming months to continue to facilitate the exchange of seeds and information for food growers of the lower South Island.

Personally I have been experimenting with some different crops and growing techniques of late, with a goal of working towards a rhythm which provides a more steady supply of food throughout the year, which is also nutritionally balanced and grown in a way which maintains or enhances soil fertility. I look forward to sharing some of these new insights with you and also hearing about your own knowledge, experiences and perspectives on these topics.

I hope that spring is treating you well and that your gardens are thriving in these relatively ideal growing conditions! The bulk of your summer plantings should be in the ground by now, and in many cases the plants will be doing their thing and producing some tasty crops! However this is not a time for complacency. In addition to weeding and irrigation duties, it's as important as always to be thinking a couple of months ahead and planning what seeds to plant. In my garden, the broad bean patch will be done soon (broad beans stop flowering in this warm weather), and garlic will be coming up not long after that. Some things you can be sowing from seed for the next month or so include:

Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, peas, beetroot, carrot, celery, leek, parsnip, radish, swedes, turnips, yams, coriander, silver beet, and lettuce...among others. If you've not yet sown pumpkins, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, corn, climbing beans or other heat loving crops, you may have missed the boat for this year, unless you're feeling particularly optimistic or have a favourable microclimate.

News from the Symbiosis Seed Exchange
It has been a very busy couple of months for the symbiosis seed exchange, with many orders coming in and many seeds going out the door! An updated seed list can be found here. A few varieties have been deleted from our list because we've either run out or crop trials have indicated that they are not earning their keep. We also have a few new varieties of things thanks to the donations of our awesome seed saving members! There are a few extra varieties lurking around in my seed store that are not on the list, so if you're after something specific, get in touch.

It's at about this time of year that I keep my fingers crossed that the many varieties of heirloom vegetable seeds we have sent out are in good hands, and that we will hopefully see some freshly saved seed stocks returned to us later in the season... if anyone has any questions about saving seed, don't hesitate to email us, or even better, post it in the forums so that all of our members can reply. Seed saving is not a difficult task, but you do need to know some basics, and there's plenty of people around to help you out with that.

Back in October, I was delighted to have the opportunity to present a seminar as part of the Otago Polytechnic and Dunedin Botanic Garden's 'Hort Talk' lecture series. It was great to share some seed saving information with all of those who attended, and I hope that you had a good time if you made it along! For those who missed it, one of our members, Christine Dalley, wrote up an excellent summary of the talk at her blog. It can be found here: http://rushleigh-the-at-home-chronicle.blogspot.com/2010/10/seed-saving-facts-and-practicalities.html (the rest of her blog is also worth an explore, she has some great info to share for Otago gardeners!)

I am also happy to announce that the winner has been drawn for our competition to win the excellent book 'Seed to Seed' by Suzanne Ashworth. Everyone who donated seeds to us this year was placed in the draw, and the winner is Mim Graham, who has been an excellent contributor to the seed exchange, bulking up several varieties of beans, tomato and herbs for us. So congrats Mim. We thank you for your efforts! The book will be in the post shortly.

Running a seed exchange is turning out to be an endlessly interesting project, with many potential avenues to explore for all involved. Overall, the goal of the seed exchange is to provide Otago gardeners with seeds of good quality, reliable and productive vegetable varieties that are suited to our local growing conditions. There are three key tasks involved in achieving this goal, and you can help with any or all of these to whatever degree you feel inclined. These three areas of work are:

Crop Testing and Observation
We are always receiving new varieties of seeds from various sources, mainly gardeners and farmers from around the lower South Island but also sometimes from further afield, such as seed exchanges in the North Island. Often, these varieties will be unfamiliar to us, or they may be a different sub-line of a particular variety that behaves differently. Or the seeds may not have been saved properly and might have lost some of their vigor from too small of a plant population for seed saving. The long and the short of it is, when we receive a new donation of seeds, we need to test it out to determine whether it is a 'keeper', and worth our time and efforts to grow and continue to share the seeds of it.

The main way to test a crop is to grow it alongside a tried and true 'standard' variety of the same species. We can then get an idea of whether it is a poor, average or good performer in comparison to our standard. At the moment, I am doing several of these kinds of trials in my garden. For example I'm growing seven varieties of carrots - one row of each - in the same bed and I will compare their performance before choosing one variety to let go to seed (if I let them all go to seed it will end up as a complete train wreck of whacked out carrot genetics!).

If you are interested in doing a crop trial, do get in touch. It does not have to be ultra-scientific, and any information is good information for us. Even if you have just noticed differences in the performance of different varieties, let us know, we're keen to hear about it! If any seeds you have gotten through Symbiosis or elsewhere have been either 'duds' or amazingly productive, its important that we know so we can maintain the quality of the seeds we provide.

Bulking up of seed supplies
After determining which varieties are worth keeping and working with, our next task is to bulk up the supplies of these seeds so that they can be distributed among the network, to gardeners around Otago and Southland. This requires someone adopting the variety through our Adopt-a-Crop initiative. This initiative is centred around encouraging our seed growers to focus on saving seeds from their one specific 'adopted' crop, and saving them properly and saving a decent quantity of them. It is not too useful to us for people to save a small amount of a dozen varieties. Its much more useful for us to receive a donation of a bulk bag of seeds which we know has had the proper care taken with regards to plant population size, avoiding crossing with other varieties, etc. Adopting a crop is great fun. Members who have done it so far have found it a very rewarding project, and we are always sure to reward them for their efforts with free packs of seeds from our seed list!

Continuing to improve and select varieties for our climate
The third main task for the Symbiosis Seed Exchange, is to continue to select and improve varieties for our unique climate. This is closely tied in with the Adopt-a-Crop project, but can extend even further if you are really interested in it. There is a wide range of potential for plant breeding and developing new varieties that are unique to Otago. I am doing a few projects at the moment with pumpkins, zucchini and carrots, for example. If you are interested in learning more detail on 'advanced' seed saving, get in touch, and we can arrange to meet up, or if there is enough interest, I may run an advanced seed saving workshop over the summer.

Onwards and upwards
That sums up the core activities of our seed savers network. I thought it was worth including this info because we have quite a few new people on the list now, and its a good refresher for those already involved.

Well, this email is about long enough now, so I'll leave it at that! Now that I'm finished up with uni I will be aiming to write more regular updates and get into some more specific information with regards to growing techniques, crop information, year-round gardening, building the soil, etc. so keep an eye out for more stuff soon! And until then, feel free to jump on to our website, check out (or add to) our gardening guide section or engage in some discussion in the forums! It's always great to hear what is going on in peoples gardens, and by sharing our experiences and information, we can all build up a more comprehensive perspective on productive gardening practices in the South!

From Bart