Gisela Derrick and Lucy Shepherd will be leading our Midland’s #SeedSearch project - ‘Sowing your seeds: heritage crops for a resilient future’ - made possible thanks to National Lottery players.

The duo will be working alongside the Heritage Seed Library team on this two-year National Heritage Lottery project to learn about and share knowledge of local and heirloom crops growing in vegetable plots across the Midlands.

Their work will include learning more about under-represented plants that are thriving locally, as well as finding out and sharing the stories of the people behind them, and their culinary and cultural significance.

The first seeds were kindly donated earlier in the year by local growers and Warwick vegetable gene bank, and are already thriving in assessment trials at our HQ in Ryton.

“It's great to be involved in this exciting new project, finding and learning about local and heirloom vegetable varieties, and the people who grow them,” says Lucy. “Having been Seed Officer at HSL for more than five years, I've got to know the varieties at the Library - and can't wait to add exciting new ones to the collection.”

Gisela added: “I feel so proud to be part of this project – in particular, finding out more about vegetables people are saving seed from, such as a family heirloom or gift, a vegetable variety that has adapted well to a local area, or perhaps those that offer a ‘flavour of home’ for someone who has settled into the Midlands.”

If you know of a locally grown variety you think we should know about or would like to find out more about the project please fill in our form here