The seed savers
A FAMILY FARM IN IRELAND IS THE SETTING FOR A THRIVING GROW-YOUROWN SEED BUSINESS RUN BY A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER TEAM
The story so far
Madeline: Holly’s father and I moved here with Holly’s six-month-old sister in 1987. It was a small dairy farm with a herd of Jersey cows. Holly was born 18 months later. Sadly, when she was four, her father and I split up. I tried milking cows and making cheese on my own but it was hard work, and in 1999 I sold the cows and got some beef cattle. I grew vegetables in my spare time and helped to start a local farmers’ market. I’d been an apprentice on a farm in the US and I’d studied botany in college, so I knew about plants, and I saved my own seeds. One wintry week when I didn’t have much to sell in the market I bought some wage envelopes and packed some of my saved peas in them, writing the labels by hand. Brown Envelope Seeds was born.
Holly: Mum is a botanist with a Masters in palynology (the study of pollen grains), a creative genius and a farmer through and through. When I moved back home from Malta four years ago, Brown Envelope Seeds was growing between 200 and 250 varieties of vegetable, herb and grain seeds, alongside rearing a handful of beef cattle.
Madeline: Holly came home as I was threatening to sell up and buy a bungalow with a big garden. She’d been working with people with disabilities but had always loved the farm and the area. She did a Masters in horticulture, which has been really useful. »
Mother and daughter Madeline McKeever and Holly Cairns grow vegetable seeds for a living on a 30-acre farm near Roaring Water Bay in West Cork, Ireland. Alongside running Brown Envelope Seeds ( brownenvelopeseeds.com), they have a few cattle and two donkeys called Nick and Ben. In 2005, they also planted half the land with broadleaf trees, mostly oak, alder and ash.
I do most of the growing and she does more of the office and PR work. We just grow herb, vegetable and cereal seeds, but there is a demand for wildflower-meadow seeds, so it’s something we should think about.
Why open pollination?
Madeline: We work with open-pollinated seeds so that others can save the seed if they choose. Hybrid seeds are produced by in-breeding strains of plants and then crossing them. The first generation of seeds are very uniform and productive, but ensuing generations will be quite variable. Open-pollinated seeds are more flexible genetically, so adapt to new environments.
Holly: If you ask people if they think locally adapted seed will grow better than imported, most say yes. It’s something we all instinctively know. Plants grown from open-pollinated seed produce seed that is ‘true to type’ – its progeny is much the same as its parents. Seed from plants grown with hybridised seed is unpredictable.
Madeline: Outdoor seeds, such as peas and cabbages, are grown in ‘the million turnip field’, so-called as the previous owner boasted about how many turnips he’d grown there. It has the farm’s best soil – dark and peaty. We also grow carrots, beets and onions there, which spend their second year in the polytunnel, flowering and setting seeds. This way we can select individual plants that do well outdoors but might struggle to produce seed in the polytunnel.
Simple pleasures
Holly: When packing, I love imagining all the seeds reaching their new homes and filling gardens and bellies. Taking a big box of seeds to the post office is very satisfying.
Madeline: In summer, I love the first new potatoes, peas and tomatoes. The good thing about tomatoes and peppers is you get to eat them as well as save the seeds. I love the seasonality – the winter packing in our cosy office, spring planting, summer weeding and crop care, and autumn harvest.
“Our commute is putting a laptop under an arm and walking down the yard to the cabin we call ‘the office’”
Our greatest success
Madeline: I think our greatest triumph is making a living out of a small farm. Our commute is putting a laptop under an arm and walking down the yard to the cabin we call ‘the office’. We have a wonderful standard of living on a very modest income.
Holly: Sweetcorn. For my Masters research, I showed the importance of using locally adapted seeds by growing different lines of the same sweetcorn variety. After four generations, plants became shorter to withstand windy West Cork climates, and produced fewer cobs to ripen what fruit they had. Over generations, they flowered and silked earlier and earlier.
When it goes wrong
Holly: Forgetting to label either plants or seeds can be a logistical nightmare. Madeline: We struggle with wildlife eating the fruits of our labour. Sparrows are particularly fond of spinach seed; finches like seeds from the cabbage family; crows dig up potatoes and would strip any cereals we grow. So we have to use a lot of netting.
What we’ve learnt
Holly: Always have a back-up printer. Madeline: I wish I’d become a seed grower sooner. I’m 60 now and my back is a bit worn out. I wish I had the energy that I put into the cows and dairy products.
Our advice...
Holly: Keep a diary.
Madeline: Just do it. It can be as simple as squeezing a few seeds out of a tomato on to a napkin and drying them on the window sill. Peas and beans are easy, too. Let them dry on the plant, then pop them in paper bags for winter. Glass jars are good, but if the seeds aren’t properly dry, they won’t keep. To test peas and beans, hit one with a hammer. It needs to shatter, not smush.