by Wendy Devlin

Seedy Saturday is coming, March 13, 2010 to the Powell River Recreation Complex!
Four hundred people have attended our community seed swap and sustainable-gardening fair each year for the past four years.  The new venue at the Recreation Complex makes possible double the number of previous workshops and information/demonstration tables.  Seedy Saturday is sponsored by the Powell River Farmers’ Institute to promote local food production and regional sustainability. Doors open 10:00 a.m.until 3:00 p.m. Admission, $2; children under 12, free.

Everyone is invited to Seedy Saturday, with or without seeds to swap. If you have seeds, package them in closed envelopes and label them clearly to swap for other people’s seeds.  The number of seed packages you bring is recorded by a volunteer who puts your seed packages into the exchange and gives you a signed chit for them. You can then browse over the hundreds of alphabetically indexed seed packages and make your selections.  When you return to the front table, a volunteer checks out your seed packages.  
 

If you don’t have seeds to swap, you can purchase seed packages for fifty cents each, up to a 10-package limit. 

Two community seed-packing parties have already packaged up 1500 packages of local seeds for the swap. Seedy Saturday also features a gardening, farming, and self-sufficiency book-and-magazine swap.

The plant exchange has been discontinued. Any non-profit groups planning plant exchanges or sales, however, can submit time and place information to our Seed Saving Committee for placement on a list of upcoming garden-related events. That list will be made available at Seedy Saturday. 

Community-information tables, staffed by dozens of enthusiastic volunteers, offer useful tips and guidance about topics like market gardening, perma-culture, beekeeping etc.  Several tables will demonstrate practical skills useful to gardeners, like worm composting and seed starting.  Small businesses with products and services, related to gardening or agriculture may place their business cards and information on a special display table. Volunteers from Family Place will host children in a fun activity center. Refreshments are for sale all day at the Seedy Café, to encourage people to stay and explore everything the event has to offer.

The purpose of Seedy Saturdays across Canada is to bring together people interested in maintaining biodiversity and our rich agricultural heritage. People exchange their best seeds from varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers, shrubs and trees that thrive in their environment. A local seed-saving network increases both the quality and quantity of affordable seeds.   Reliable, high-quality sources of seeds should not be taken for granted. Many of the flower and vegetable seeds sold in Canada are grown elsewhere in the world, using huge quantities of pesticides and herbicides. 

International political and economic conflicts can disrupt global supply and distribution of food and seed.  Failure of entire crops can happen because of disease, adverse weather conditions or poor storage conditions.  In the past decade, mega-corporations like Monsanto (of bio-engineering fame) have bought up other seed companies that once supplied significant seed amounts for world food crops like corn, soya beans, wheat, rice, and canola. Even smaller seed companies discontinue seed varieties if they can’t sell enough of them to make a profit.

Last year, the Powell River Seed Saving Project was initiated. Experienced gardeners were given seeds of selected vegetable varieties, purchased from two reputable Canadian seed companies by the Seed Saving Committee. The growers saved seed from these plants to the best of their ability. After harvest, the growers kept the seeds they needed and donated the seeds to Seedy Saturday. These seeds are packaged in envelopes, stamped ‘Seed-Saving Project’ and will be available at Seedy Saturday. 

You are invited to join the Seed Saving Project. Your name and seed-saving success will be recorded on our database to keep track of who is growing what vegetables for seed and willing to share experiences and the seeds themselves. Visit the project’s blog: http://seedsavers.wordpress.com/ Four gardening-skill improving workshops are planned: 

10:30 AM: Plan for your best garden yet!  Jenna Adema and Jonathan van Wiltenburg lead you through the basics of planning a garden, taking into account your space, the climate, soil conditions, and what you want to grow and enjoy in your garden.

 11:30 AM:  Getting our seeds off to a good start  Rosie Fleur shows you how to get plants started under good growing conditions, how to adjust light and temperature for the best results, and how to time starts so that they can go from flats to garden and grow into hardy, productive plants.

 12:30 PM: Growing berries in Powell River   Doug Cooper is your guide choosing berry varieties, extending the productive berry season, preparing the soil, fertilising and watering, and pruning and transplanting. Find out how to have more delicious berries.

 1:30 PM: Seed-saving 101  Wendy Devlin explains the techniques of basic seed saving for your favorite plants and  how to create a seed-saving mecca of vegetables, flowers and herbs in your garden New this year to Seedy Saturday are four communiy workshops about local sustainability initiatives:

  10:30 am. Food Security: The Third Annual Report  David Parkinson, director of the Powell River Food Security Project presents a survey of the community initiatives around the region which promote increased local food production and healthier eating choices for everyone. Bring your input to the discussion, brain-storming and Q&A. period. 11:30 a.m. Transition Initiatives: Rebuilding Community Resilience  Help strategise the transition from our current lifestyle to a lower-carbon, lower-energy one.  Facilitator Kevin Wilson is president of Transition Town Powell River (TTPR), part of a world-wide network of “Transition Initiatives” aiming to rebuild resilience in their communities in response to climate change, resource depletion and economic instability. 

12:30 p.m. Time to S.A.L.S.A (Society for the Achievement of Local Sustainable Agriculture) Powell River Farmers’ Institute president and certified organic farmer, Helena Bird, from Hatch-a-Bird Farm in Wildwood introduces this community-inspired sustainability initiative.

1:30 p.m.   Powell River’s own Seed-Saving Project  Wendy Devlin, Powell River Farmers’ Institute vice-president and gardening educator, invites both new and experienced gardeners to learn about a seed-saving initiative designed to increase both the quality and quantity of local seeds. February 20th, Robin Wheeler, author of the 2008 book Food Security for the Faint-hearted, is coming to Texada Island for a day-long Micro-Farm Workshop. The  workshop helps non-producers become food growers, smaller producers increase their output, and everyone network better through tool- and information-sharing. Robin will also give a Sunday talk in Powell River about the importance of producing food on a small scale, and share her experience about how best to maximize the productivity of the space (and the TIME!) you put into your food garden. See you at Seedy Saturday! Contact Kevin Wilson 604 483-9052 kevin.wilson100@shaw.ca for more information.