Have you ever wondered how everyday staples such as peas, kale, asparagus, beans, squash and sweetcorn ended up on our plates?

Well, so did Adam Alexander. Adam’s passion for heritage vegetables was ignited when he tasted an unusual, sweet and fiery pepper while on a filmmaking project in Ukraine. Smitten by its flavour, he began to seek out local growers of old and near-forgotten varieties in a mission to bring home seeds to grow and share – saving them from being lost forever.

In conversation with plant and garden historian, Advolly Richmond, Adam will talk about his work as a ‘seed detective’, sharing the stories behind our everyday vegetables and the heroes who are keeping these traditions alive today.

Adam Alexander is a passionate gardener who has been collecting and saving seeds for over 35 years.  He maintains a library of over 550 vegetables, growing out more than 40 varieties every year to refresh his collection and share with fellow gardeners, and is a seed guardian for the Heritage Seed Library. Adam also spent forty years as a successful and award-winning film and television producer and lectures widely on his work discovering, conserving and sharing rare, endangered garden crops.  He is the author of The Seed Detective and The Accidental Seed Heroes.

Advolly Richmond OBE, is a plant, garden and social historian based in Shropshire. A fellow of the Linnean Society, she is also an ambassador for the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. She lectures and writes on a variety of subjects from the 16th century through to the early 20th century and teaches Garden History at the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford. Advolly’s book, A Short History of Flowers: The stories that make our gardens, was published in March 2024. She also contributes garden history features on BBC`s Gardener’s World.