Who else tried growing something new this year? First up, possibly the most Somerset-sounding of all the vegetables, the bonkers Mangelwurzel. We first heard about them when researching Punkie Night a few years ago. Since 1877, the Somerset village of Hinton St George has celebrated Punkie Night (held on the last Thursday in October), where Mangelwurzels are fashioned into lanterns and paraded through the streets by gaggles of children. When we saw that @shegrowsveg had started selling the seeds, we knew we had to try growing some, and we weren't the only ones - there are now over 100 growers taking part in the Great Polden Hills Mangelwurzel Day! Next up was a genuine surprise! Back in 2023 some Isleta Pueblo tobacco seeds were donated to the Potato Day. Nobody claimed them, so we took them... and then promptly forgot about them, that is until this year. I popped them in during the heatwave, watered them whenever I remembered, and this happened all! Check out those spires of flowers! Originating from New Mexico, this variety of tobacco has an extremely high nicotine content and so is traditionally used for indigenous ceremonial purposes, but can also be used as a natural insecticide, so i'm going to have a go at harvesting the leaves for this purpose. Please note that this was grown in my personal garden, not the kid's garden, LOL. And finally, Yacón. Apparently, it looks like a jacket potato but tastes like a pear?! We were handed a bag of tubers at the Potato Day and were told to pop them in a tub, so we did. I haven't actually checked to see whether any edible tubers have formed, as I imagined we'd have to wait until after flowering to harvest. No flowers have come this year, so we'll probably have a rummage near the surface for tubers and then store the whole plant somewhere frost-free for the winter, but has anyone here had a successful harvest?!

Well, the past 24 hours have been WILD! 😅 Thank you to everyone who responded to our story about the dumping of the Seed Library Garden. It's all been quite overwhelming, but it has restored my faith in humanity somewhat, so thank you. If we ever get any kind of updated response from Somerset Council, I shall let you know. But don't hold your breath. In the meantime, whilst the Seed Library Garden may be no more, the Seed Library is still very much alive and kicking. For those of you new to us, it's our free permanent seed swap based inside Frome Library. People grow the plants, donate the seeds, we sort and pack them, and then pop them in the library for others to grow ("borrow") and start the cycle all over again. Since 2022, over 6000 packets of seed have been distributed in this way, all for free, all in the name of food and seed sovereignty. In between reading all of your messages of support yesterday, we packed up 50+ packets of seed, meaning the other seed tray is back in business, hurrah! So pop in today for lots of fantastic pollinator-friendly flower seed, heritage beans, and other seedy goodness. It's all free*, you don't have to sign up to anything, just take what you need. *If you'd like to make a monetary donation, though, please pop it in the donation box or donate online to @fromebirthtalk, whom we will be sending our donations to for the coming month. Their vital work is literally saving lives, but they desperately need more funding to do so, so please consider supporting them if you are able to. That's all for now, I'm going to sit in a dark room for a couple of days and recover. Cheers!