2026 sees the first Biggin Hill Horticultural Society Seed Swap on Saturday 21 February, 10.30-12.30 at Saint Mark’s Church Hall, Church Road, Biggin Hill, Kent
Seed swaps are becoming popular and we thought you’d like your very own Biggin Hill one!
Growing from seed is an exciting and inexpensive way to fill our gardens with flowers & food from annuals, perennials, vegetables and herbs.
But it’s not just about swapping packets of seeds, there will also be –
- seed talks and demonstrations on the day, including “Is there a right way up to sow seeds?”
- trading table with seed packets and other propagation items so you can get started straight away with the seeds you go home with
- and of course, the opportunity to chat with friends over a cuppa
Briefly, the seeds you bring to swap may be –
1] home collected
2] unused bought / magazine freebie seed packets
3] opened /half used seed packets
4] tubers, summer flowering bulbs, onionn sets, seed potatoes, etc can be swopped too
NB The ‘sow by’ date on packets of seed should be no older than 2023
Benefits to You –
- a chance to swop excess and unwanted seeds for ones you do want or would like to try
- social as it’s an extra meetup with horti club peeps before first gardeners’ evening in March
- an opportunity to ask committee any gardening, show, etc questions and make suggestions for meetings etc
How the seed swap works – please read all of this so you know what to do and expect
There will be three categories of seed packets –
- Ornamental
- Vegetables
- Herbs and Fruit
Seed packets will be in basic alphabetical order, ie if it’s an Alchemilla mollis or an Aquilegia it’s in the A section somewhere!
Tubers, bulbs, sets will be in their own groups.
At the end there are some pics to show how home collected seeds may be cleaned / made ready. They are not going to be as clean as the ones you buy from companies as homes don’t have the specialist equipment!
To make it easy and fair, we’ll be running a token system
For example, if you bring 5 seed packets you can obviously take 5 different ones away. But what if there are two others you want? Tokens mean this is easy to do: You buy more tokens, Token value is 20p and they’ll be available for purchase throughout the morning / whilst there are still seeds or tubers for swapping.
Entry is free to everyone, but there are benefits for Biggin Hill Horticultural Society Members – as shown in this example table
| Who | What they bring | What they get to start with |
| Member | Seed packets | 1 token per packet, plus 5 tokens |
| Member | Nothing | 5 tokens |
| Non-Member | Seed packets | 1 token per packet |
| Non-Member | Nothing | Nothing |
Info to include on packet Home collected Seeds
Date of collection – eg Aug 25
Name of plant seed was collected from –
Ornamentals & Herbs – eg Jacobs Ladder, Polemonium; Catnip, Nepeta cataria. (first part of botanical name where different to common name is encouraged to reduce confusion)
Veg & Fruit – Cabbage; Melon (botanical name not needed)
All –
- Variety / cultivar if known
- Flower colour (where relevant)
Info to include on tubers / bulbs /sets
Plant type & cultivar
Cleaning your home collected seeds
Large seeds such as runner beans are easy – remove from the pod and they’re ready to be put in an envelope for swapping.
But some seeds can be trickier…
It’s not always the small seeds that are difficult to separate from the chaff, sometimes the shape of the seed keeps it attached. Chaff just means the bits of petals etc that are attached to the seeds.
If you have a fine sieve in the kitchen that will be all you need for many seeds. Have a tray underneath the sieve and pour a few of the collected mix of seeds and chaff into the sieve and shake as if you’re dusting a cake with icing sugar, but more gently so the seeds don’t go everywhere!
Some chaff and seeds can be dusty, so wear a mask if you’re prone to breathing issues.
As you can see from the photos, how clean the seeds end up is variable. But that’s fine! Sowing the chaff with the seed won’t harm it.
This first one is Lychnis coronaria, rose campion, the white with pink centre variety known as Angels Blush (and yes I’ll have seeds to bring to the seed swap!) As you can see this seed came quite clean.
Then we have Amaranthus cruentis, which is both a great addition to an ornamental border and edible too, as both leaves and seeds can be eaten. You can see from the magnified photo that there is still a lot of fine chaff in with those wonderful shiny seeds.
Please note:
- No seed from abroad is allowed
- Seed from plants collected in the wild is not allowed and, in many cases, illegal
If you have any questions please email us at bigginhillhorticulturalsociety@gmail.com (Although please allow us 3 days to reply as we’re all volunteers!)