Need for seed

Two community gardens in Cork have been awarded a place on a special seed growing and saving programme.

Gardens in Bantry and Kildorrery will join eight other gardens around the country for the Community Seed Guardian Programme run by the Irish Seed Savers Association.

Irish Seed Savers will provide these ten community gardens with training and mentoring in seed growing and seed saving with experienced facilitators.

These facilitators will outline all of the steps needed to enhance seed supply for community gardeners around the island of Ireland without having to rely on food seed imports to grow their own food.

Irish Seed Savers say that training community growing groups to grow and save their own food seed will increase access to seed availability and create greater community engagement with the full food supply from seed to plate.

The eight other gardens chosen for the programme are in Dublin city, Wexford, Kildare, Tipperary, Donegal, Leitrim, Galway and Mayo.

The programme was developed with funding received through Rethink Ireland’s Innovate Together programme and Community Foundations Ireland.