As we enjoy the excitement that comes with the height of the growing season, we have had some time to reflect on this year so far at London Freedom Seed Bank. For this year’s spring seed distribution, we decided to try something new, switching up our annual seed sharing event in favour of having a presence at other seed festivals and seed swaps across London.
This stemmed from a discussion around the purpose of the bank and our responsibility as its stewards. As a steering group, we often feel a big responsibility to hold on to the precious seeds that make up the seed bank. Yet, ultimately LFSB is a living seed bank and the seed is there to be grown and shared. We had seed that needed to be grown out in the next few years and we realised that spreading the knowledge of our network and our many exciting varieties of seed was the most important thing.
As a result, this spring we attended more seed events than ever before, meeting with growers and seed savers across London. Below, we wanted to shout out some of the events we attended to share in the joy that is coming together and sharing seed.
Wolves Lane Seed Swap Festival
9th March 2025 at Wolves Lane
We joined the inspiring team at Wolves Lane for their second Seed Festival, a day of stalls, activities and talks around the importance of seed saving.
At our stall, we met lots of passionate new and experienced seed savers from across London. Helene from LFSB also took part in a panel discussion with Black Rootz & Ella from Wolves Lane on seed sovereignty.
Incredible Edible Lambeth Seed Swap
15th March 2025 at the Garden Museum
This was a chance for us to share seeds with other folks within Lambeth and south London more broadly. Anna also gave a talk on the importance and politics of seed saving.
Hackney Herbal Spring Equinox Seed Swap
15th March 2025 at Hackney Herbal
We joined Hackney Herbal’s seed swap and had a lovely time meeting growers new and old to distribute seeds in East London. A highlight was someone who had gotten seeds from LFSB 3 years ago and had grown, then saved seed each year and brought some to go back into the bank.
Waltham Forest Right to Grow campaign launch
12th April 2025 in Waltham Forest
We joined the Right to Grow demonstration, with a LSFB seed swap table, speaking to lots of new growers as well as crossing paths with growers who have been growing on LFSB seed for years at a time – another blog to come on this! For more about the campaign and how to get involved see here: https://www.wfrtg.co.uk/right-to-grow
These events, and conversations with one another, have also led to a decision to rethink the structure of LFSB. At the very heart of London Freedom Seed Bank is its network, and the seed savers who contribute back to the bank each year. What’s more, sharing open-pollinated seed functions as a gift economy, meaning we very rarely operate under a monetary exchange. This framing has helped us to come to the decision to prioritise our set up as a community network, and close as a “private company limited by guarantee”, instead continuing to run as usual with our volunteers and an ever-growing grower network. We’re excited by this renewed focus on building our network, which we’ll be taking forward.
And so, with tomatoes ripening and peas ready to shell, we thought it was high time we updated our resources page to help folks prepare for seed collecting: https://www.londonfreedomseedbank.org/resources/. If there’s anything you’d like to contribute/ think should be added please get in touch at freedomseedbank@gmail.com
If you are growing and saving seed in London, or hoping to save seed soon, please join the LFSB Growers Network: https://www.londonfreedomseedbank.org/register-as-a-grower/
We also have a mailing list (found below in the footer of our website) and you can find us on instagram: @freedomseedbank
Happy growing and seed saving!