Everything we sell is 100% ORGANIC

Old heirloom seed varieties represent centuries of careful selection and breeding for small-scale growers that have stood the test of time along this journey and offer both a living link to our past as well as a source of hope and resilience for the future. Organic agriculture should sustain and enhance the health of soil, plant, animal, human and planet as one and indivisible.

Our mission is to collect, store, and regenerate the organic seeds of thousands of rare, heirloom, and open-pollinated varieties. Heirloom seeds constitute a critical part of the nation’s agricultural heritage and help ensure genetic diversity of plant species. We must protect this foundation as a safe and genetically stable source for future generations. You can play an enormous role in preservation by growing out heirloom varieties for seed in your garden.

Everyone deserves to the benefits of having a garden. Even indoor plants are proven to improve health through consumption, reduce stress, improve air quality and overall happiness.
We need to remember that we are nature and not separate from it, and how we treat nature has profound effects upon our society and the earth.

We are constantly searching, sourcing and adding new varieties each season and continue to expand our large range of flowers, fruit and vegetable seeds to the website. We also look for interesting plants that are well known in other countries, and could do well in the UK, but have so far remained relatively unknown.

Across the UK, there are a large number of fantastic organic gardening groups, clubs, organisations and gardens supporting local residents with their organic growing. Most gardens are quite small, but there are 15 million of them in the UK. Imagine the improvement to the environment if all these gardens were cared for organically, and how much better it would be for our family, plants and wildlife.

Ancestry Seed Bank is hosting a forum under every product and mission organic blog where we encourage all growers to add reviews, comments and share organic gardening experiences.

We think science is beginning to uncover the answers that explain our observations.

We are inspected every year by the Soil Association, and the plant health seed inspectorate. We do not support the development of genetically modified seeds and none of our seeds are GMs.

Thank you for being a valued customer and helping to support our organic mission.

Bee the Change! 

Crop rotation has been practiced for thousands of years being an important factor of organic gardening. Throughout human history, wherever food crops have been produced, rotation cropping appears to have been practiced. The underlying principles for planning effective cropping systems began to emerge in the middle years of the 18th century.

By 1951 in Britain, Newman Turner was promoting an eight-course crop rotation for organic farmers in his book Fertility Farming. For the home vegetable grower, complex rotations are hard to manage but simple 3-course crop rotation is far better than no rotation at all. Better still, four-course crop rotation or even a five-course crop rotation. Beyond this level, most growers will be unable to control what’s going where without perfect planning.

There are many different systems for rotating crops, some simple and some quite complex, designed to ensure that the following crops utilize nutrients left by previous crops. Is an easy approach to growing high-quality and abundant food, whether you are a hobbyist or a professional grower.

Growing the same crop in the same place for many years in a row gradually depletes the soil of certain nutrients and selects for a highly competitive pest and weed community. Without balancing nutrient use and diversifying pest and weed communities, the productivity of monocultures is highly dependent on external inputs.

Conversely, a well-designed crop rotation can reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers and herbicides by better using ecosystem services from a diverse set of crops. Additionally, crop rotations can improve soil structure and organic matter, which reduces erosion and increases farm system resilience.

To be functioning at our best, humans require good nutrition, proper rest and exercise. When we focus on these things, we are able to do more with less effort. The same is true of soil. Think beyond the elements which are in your garden space. Learn how those elements are being used and by whom. There’s more than just earthworms and ants under the soil surface. There are also billions of microorganisms, known as the soil food web. Those microorganisms all have their own complex roles to play in how they interact with your plants.

Beyond the organic matter you add, the plants you place within the soil also work for the benefit of the soil food web. As plants convert sunlight through photosynthesis into sugars for growth, some of those sugars are released through the roots into the soil to feed many of the microorganisms living there. Chemicals released by plant roots can trigger microorganisms to go to work or to go dormant.

If you plant spring crops, summer crops and fall crops; you may already be following a principle of crop rotation. When you think about it, succession planting and crop rotation can be the same thing.

It is complicated – and fascinating – but it doesn’t need to be intimidating.

The most important thing to remember with crop rotation is to avoid growing the same crop in the same place for two years running.

There are about 10,000 plant species that are used as vegetables the world over. Of these, about fifty plant species or so are commercially important. It is therefore important to classify vegetables into groups or classes to better understand or discuss them. Vegetables that share some characteristics are grouped together.

Broadly there are five methods of classifying vegetables. These include; Botanical classification, Classification based on hardiness or temperature, Classification based on plant part used, Classification based on culture and Classification based on life cycle. Grouping plants by botanical family makes it possible to save space and promote mutual protection among vegetables.

Crop rotation will not be applicable to perennial systems. However, rotating cover crops in the alleys between perennial crops represents an opportunity to increase the biodiversity of perennial systems and protect against pest buildups. There are several options related to alley cover crops: they can be rotated annually to a different cover crop, or mix of cover crops, or every other alley can be planted to cover crops, leaving alternate alleys bare. Some farmers believe this practice can provide some level of frost protection because bare ground will absorb and give off more heat. Also, some farmers will plant different cover crops every other alley and each year “switch” the alley cover crops.

Crop rotation often feels intimidating or overwhelming to some people but it's really easy to breakdown. My goal is to breakdown for you.

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What are your results? What can we learn from you and your plants/garden?

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