Emma Cooper

On Thursday I went up to Garden Organic Ryton for their afternoon course ‘Biodynamics for Beginners’. I’ll have to tell you about that another day, because my notes are in the car, which is in Sussex with Pete, but I went up during the morning so that I could meet up with a couple of people who I knew online but not in person.

The first was Sally Cunningham, who is heading up the Sowing New Seeds project I mentioned a few weeks ago. The idea behind the project (which is based in the midlands) is to collect seeds and plants of exotic edibles and grow them on to find out the best ways to grow them in this country – and then disseminate that information more widely.

The latest news from the project talks about the plants that you can see when you visit Ryton. The weather wasn’t good, and I didn’t manage to photograph them all, but I did see the 'Red Noodle' yard-long beans (Vigna sesquipedalis var ungicularis), eddoes (Colcoasia esculenta) and Polenta maize (Zea mays), among others.

Sally also gave me a behind-the-scenes tour, which was fascinating. She really knows her plants, and constantly brings out little snippets of information.

This plant:

I thought was a big patch of nettles, but it’s Korean Mint (Agastache rugosa). According to Sally it has a flavour like a cross between mint and lavender, but is hot. Two or three of the flowers, served with ice cream, are delicious. You need something to counter the heat!

Tree spinach (Chenopodium giganteum) self seeds – this one is a volunteer from my garden, which came up by the compost heap this spring and which I have since potted up. The photo doesn’t do the bright pink centre justice – it is covered in little crystals that shimmer in the sun, like glitter. Sally says that if you shake it, the pink colouring comes off, and that it was used as a cosmetic, particularly in Japan.

I was also lucky enough to meet the lovely Vicky Love Thy Space. They sell classy garden stuff and have an office at Ryton, which must be a lovely place to go to work, but I imagine it must also be very distracting! How much self-control must you have not to keep popping out into the gardens? Vicky and I had a good chat and she showed me her allotment in a bucket (plants which need taking home and planting out!). I met Vicky on Twitter, and it’s always nice to be able to put names to faces.