Garden Organic recruits university to seed programme

16:01:20 19th January 2010

Garden and greenhouse fans may be interested to know that a UK university has joined Garden Organic's Heritage Seed Library (HSL) programme.

According to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), Nottingham Trent University has become one of 300 seed guardians and is the first university to sign up to the initiative.

As part of its involvement, the educational establishment will grow a number of heritage varieties of vegetables, some of which are considered very rare.

It will collect seeds and pass them back to the HSL, which will include them in its catalogue for garden and greenhouse enthusiasts to access and grow in their own green space.

HSL chief Neil Munro explained that the organisation is keen to attract more universities with a view to them becoming seed guardians.

"About 40,000 packets of seed - that's 40 per cent of what goes in our catalogue - are provided by seed guardians. We couldn't manage without them," he said.

Meanwhile, the RHS recently revealed that the Tree O'Clock attempt at breaking the record for the most trees planted in an hour fell short of the required total.