Late last summer at the bottom of a garden in County Clare you would have found cabbages rearing up to five or six feet, brussels sprouts, cut-and-come kales and other selected brassicae. But this was no ordinary garden. This was the heritage garden at Capparoe, the site of the Irish Seed Savers Association.

At one time each county would have its own local varieties of Brassica, adapted to the conditions and tastes of the area. They would have their own distinctive properties, resistance to disease and adaptation to climate. [[There are still old varieties to be found in East Clare. There are certainly cut-and-come kales, a never-ending crop of nutritious, tasty greens.]] Yet many of these cabbages, the sprouts and the kales which have been grown in Ireland for centuries, special local varieties with their distinctive flavours, have been steadily disappearing.

It was in 1982 that Dr B Murphy, funded by the European Community and with this rate of disappearance in mind, set out to collect as many of the Irish Brassica species as he could find. He discovered kales and cabbages which had been grown for generations, both from his travels around Ireland and from the Irish Dept of Agriculture. Seeds of these Brassicae were sent to the European Brassica base collection, maintained by Horticulture Research International in Wellesbourne in the UK, and stored there until last year. Last summer Anita received a consignment of small foil packages, sealed for storage under special conditions, and took on the awesome prospect of becoming the protector of these wonderful old varieties. In March of this year at seed planting time she opened the packages with great trepidation. Would the seeds still be viable? Would she be able to get them to grow? It was an overwhelming responsibility. Especially when she found many of the seeds to be crumbly little bits of nothing. How would the cabbages of Ireland ever be saved from these poor old specimens?