Editor’s Note: These pieces are intended to offer a deeper look into each episode of surfer Fergal Smith‘s Line9 series, Growing, a new clip published every two weeks. The series is a year in the life of Smith and his brother. With a new clip published every two weeks, the series follows them as they take a step back from the rat race while spending days tending to a sustainable garden and surfing the readily available Irish slab.
Author’s Note: My main reason for doing this series is for showing the what else I’m passionate about — aside from surfing — and to try to promote all the good, positive things that people are doing.
This was a project I really wanted to do — focusing again on gardening and vegetables. I know most people are not too interested in watching a surfing clip about seeds and would rather there were more waves, but this stuff really is so important. Seed Savers is an amazing place and, luckily for me, it’s only an hour drive away. I don’t know how much people know about seed-saving organizations, but this one in Ireland (which has been going for over 20 years is primarily about saving seeds that would be otherwise unobtainable. The Irish Seeds Savers started with saving every type of apple tree they could find around the country, many which would be lost now if they had not collected them — and today they have huge range of every kind of vegetable seeds, also. Why is it important? Commercial seed companies are only selling the best selling seeds. The lesser-known seeds are effectively going extinct. Biodiversity, or having different types of plants as opposed to a singular mono-crop, is vital to our ecosystem. Often a lot of these lesser known seeds are suitable to certain areas where other seeds wouldn’t be able to survive, which makes them all the more important to protect.
I would encourage anyone who has an interest in food security to check out how seeds get saved and support a seed saver in your country. Maybe even start saving some of your own seeds. Like our coastlines, they’re worth protecting.
Until next time, I hope you are doing well.
