Curriculum for museum workers

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”.