Hunting Resilient and Rare Seeds with Adam Alexander | The Beet

The Beet: A Podcast For Plant Lovers

Epic Gardening

Home & Garden, Education, Leisure, How To

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Launch your business with a free trial of Shopify. Go to https://shopify.com/thebeet to learn more! Episode Description: On this episode of The Beet Podcast, we explore the fascinating world of rare and endangered vegetables with seed hunter Adam Alexander, who tracks down hundreds of unique seed varieties on the brink of disappearing. He shares the stories behind these extraordinary plants, and why saving their seeds matters more than ever. Connect with Adam Alexander: Since discovering his first heirloom pepper in Donetsk in the late ’80s, Adam Alexander has been on a mission to find, grow, and save rare, endangered, and delicious vegetables. A dedicated seed saver for the Heritage Seed Library, he’s now collected over 500 varieties—growing around 140 each year. Find more from Adam Alexander at his website: https://theseeddetective.co.uk/ Purchase "The Accidental Seed Heroes": https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/797554/the-accidental-seed-heroes-by-adam-alexander/ Support The Beet: → Shop: https://growepic.co/shop → Seeds: https://growepic.co/botanicalinterests Learn More: → All Our Channels: https://growepic.co/youtube → Blog: https://growepic.co/blog → Podcast: https://growepic.co/podcasts → Discord: https://growepic.co/discord → Instagram: https://growepic.co/insta → TikTok: https://growepic.co/tiktok → Pinterest: https://growepic.co/pinterest → Twitter: https://growepic.co/twitter → Facebook: https://growepic.co/facebook → Facebook Group: https://growepic.co/fbgroup → Love our products? Become an Epic affiliate! https://growepic.co/3FjQXqV Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The majority of people in the world are fed from farms of less than five acres.
0:06.9	And, you know, you go to the market in Rajasthan and wherever,
0:11.1	and sure, you can buy modern cultivars of some things.
0:14.9	But actually what people want are the local varieties that are part of their culture, their story.
0:23.6	You know, it's really, to me, being able to celebrate that and recognize that these
0:29.6	indigenous farmers, their knowledge and their skill and their ability to be able to ensure resilience in their food system, when they
0:43.4	live in the most extreme of climates, is, you know, to be, you know, we have, we need to sit
0:51.7	at their feet and listen to what they have to tell us about how we should also be feeding ourselves.
1:03.0	Welcome to the Beat Podcast. I'm your host today, Jacques Lyokov. And today we're going to go a little bit deeper, I think, that we normally get to.
1:10.4	Because today we have
1:11.4	Adam Alexander on, who I just had the pleasure of reading his book, The Accidental Seed Heroes,
1:16.9	and he's also written another book, The Seed Detective, and he definitely knows about seeds. So today
1:22.1	we're going to be talking about seed saving. What goes into it, everything around it, there's a lot
1:26.6	of interesting things, and we're going to
1:28.2	dive into some things like grains as well, which I'm very excited to talk about. But thank you for
1:32.7	coming on today, Adam. Why don't you give a little introduction about yourself where you are,
1:36.4	where you grow? And your journey. Well, Jacques, thank you very much for inviting me. I'm delighted
1:43.1	to be included in your podcasts.
1:46.0	Just a little bit about me.
1:48.0	Well, I'm a Brit.
1:49.0	I live in Southeast Wales.
1:52.0	And I have about three and a half acres of which only a very small amount.
	...

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