Curriculum for museum workers
Course in seed saving for people connected to museums (workers, volunteers, community)
Target group: This curriculum is for museum workers
Location: Indoor and outdoor space in the museum
Staff: One - two persons.
Duration: 4 h.
1) Presentation of the Project “Growing Seed Savers in Museums” and background for the project
Charlotte Snebæk Poulsen told the participants about the inspiration for “Margrethe’s Kitchen Garden” in Kringsminde. Margrethe Hvid was the first Danish, female garden consultant, and the garden was created according to Margrethe Hvid’s book “Køkkenurter: Dyrkning og Konservering” (Kitchengarden Vegetables: Growing and Preserving) from 1943. Charlotte emphasized the difficulties in finding seeds of the exact vegetable variety that was used in 1943. The museum garden was made with the help of volunteers.
2) Seed saving theory
Why saving pure-bred seeds and especially in museums?
Basic knowledge in the difference between plant family, species, subspecies, varieties, and the scientific names of plants.
Basic plant biology for seed savers.
Pollination: Self-pollinators, cross-pollination, insects, wind or hand-pollination
Open-pollinated seeds versus F1 hybrids
Seed propagation, clones – vegetative propagation
Easy or more difficult plants to start with.
Isolation, distance, barriers between varieties and numbers of plants to grow to keep the gene content high and reduce risk of inbreeding depression.
3) The practical part, shown mainly outside
Harvest, cleaning and threshing dry seeds gave participants the possibility to see and touch seeds, i.e. carrot seeds, that in their natural form don’t look much like the carrot seeds one buys.
Wet seeds i.e. tomatoes, cleaning, fermenting, and drying of wet seeds.
Labels, record keeping, storing of seeds. “Good practice”.
Power in Numbers
10-20
Participants
4
Duration (hours)
2
Staff needed