Guildford Seed Bank

We are looking for volunteers who want to grow food and save seed! We are looking to expand our group of growers, and increase the amount of seed and variety we can save for the following year. Mostly people grow the food in their gardens or at their allotments.

As a group, we meet every couple of months for a social up at Rosamund Community Garden to catch up on how things are going.

Volunteers who are interested in growing and who don't have growing space and would like some encouragement with learning how to grow food and save seed,  can also join Rosamund Community Garden to help maintain our beds there (membership is £10 a year). We have 2 allocated seed beds. This will involve weeding, water, planting, seed harvesting (end of the summer), mulching, and sowing new seed. At Rosamund we practice no dig gardening (organic) to build the soil and encourage wildlife and insect life.

Please note Rosamund Community Garden is 50 mins walk from Guildford mainline station, but there is a bus service that runs along Warren Road, which would be the closest drop off point. If you are walking there, from Tunsgate, it is about a 35 minute walk up Pewley Hill.

We welcome all ages, but anyone under the age of 18 must be supervised. At Rosamund we have have had Duke of Edinburgh volunteers, and this might be something of interest.

Time commitment is based on each individual, obviously during the growing season, plants do need a fair bit of looking after. For the other involvement in the seed bank (e.g social media, help with website, writing articles, media contact etc) it is year round, and of course helping with organisation for our winter seed swap (probably February time)

Who are we?

We are a group of a dozen residents in the Guildford area with a passion for growing food and gardening in a sustainable and self-renewing way. The seed bank was set up to involve more local people in seed-saving for using in the next growing season. Each autumn, after the growing season we will pool and share our seed to get more people growing.

Guildford Seed Bank was formed in 2021, and this winter, we announced our arrival with a fantastic community seed swap event, attended by over 150 people. 

We are hoping to bring together people of all ages who are interested in growing their own food (or flowers) and strengthening biodiversity. We also need people to help with social media, and also tending to the Seed Bank beds up at Rosamund Community Garden, where we are growing various crops for seed this year, and of course help with fundraising ideas.