Some visits stay with you long after the day is over. This month we welcomed Momma Selma to OmVed Gardens. Her giant pumpkins have been growing in our garden all season, and as she shared her story, we discovered a generosity even more remarkable than the pumpkins themselves.
Selma is 93. For more than 50 years, she has been growing giant pumpkins or "Big Berthas" as she calls them, on her allotment, saving the seed each autumn and sowing it again the following spring. And every year, she gives dozens of those pumpkins away: to friends, family, neighbours, the church minister and even local shopkeepers.
The story of her pumpkins began at Brixton Market, over half a century ago. There, a Jamaican lady gave Selma some seeds she had grown back home in Jamaica. That is as far back as the trail goes. We find ourselves wondering who gave those seeds to her, and who gave them to them before that. How many hands, gardens and kitchens have they passed through?
This season, some of those same pumpkins have been growing here at OmVed, from seed we picked up at Wolves Lane Centre. When we shared a reel of the Pumpkins on Instagram, Selma's friend Sandra spotted it and got in touch. Before long, we were welcoming Sandra and Momma Selma to the garden to see them for herself.
We walked her through the growing pumpkins, our kitchen team harvested one and turned it into a pumpkin soup. We sat down together to eat it, swapping stories around the table. It felt like exactly the right way to honour a plant that has been shared so generously for so long.
What struck all of us most was Selma herself: her kindness, her wonderful sense of humour, and the easy generosity she shows to everyone around her. It is not hard to see why her pumpkins have travelled so far.
Visits like this are a reminder of why seed saving matters. Of course it is about growing good, resilient crops, adapted over years to the places they grow. But it is also about people. Every seed carries a story and a person behind it: someone who chose to save it, and someone who chose to pass it on.
A heartfelt thank you to Momma Selma for sharing her pumpkins, her stories and her afternoon with us. Thank you to Sandra for making the visit happen, and to Wolves Lane, where we picked up the seeds.
