March 28, 2009

few months ago when I met K2, she and I discussed having a "Seedy Saturday" event. What she was thinking was a get-together at her house, I was thinking something a little larger. Then two other people in the agricultural community got wind of it and then paired up with us.. and no pun intended, but it really blossomed from there. 

Picture Above: People starting to come into the building for Seedy Saturday. My table was the greeting table and "Learn how to save seeds", so I did not get to see much of the other rooms. This one, when I zoomed through for getting something to eat at the "Seedy Cafe" it was cram packed. 

The main purpose of "Seedy Saturday" is to educate people and have an open pollinated seed swap. But we wanted ours to be even more than that to incorporate local foods, educate people, get them involved with community gardens and so forth. 

Picture Above: I ordered over 600 seed catalogs which are 100% or have mostly heirloom open pollinated varieties. By the end of the event, there was just a few left. I passed them the rest of them off to someone who wanted them for an event in the future. 

I ordered seed catalogs from every seed company in North American, England, France and Israel. They were outstanding in their contributions. We contacted a nutritionist who works with the government of Canada to come and do talks, we invited bee keepers, we planted seeds several weeks ago and all the proceeds from the sale of the plants go to buying tools for the community gardens for everyone. We even invited a local 'green' restraunt to have a "Seedy Cafe" there to feed people. The event was even better than we hoped it would be and we were making plans on having it again next year before this event was even half over. There were that many people coming the doors. We did not take count, but all of us think there were over 250 people who attended the free event.

Picture Above: The beekeeping table was packed and full of activity like a beehive. Several people dressed up in full bee suits and had their pictures taken. This lady takes care of many many hives on her own.

Picture Below: This is R.. he is one of the four people in our group who put this shindig on. He is always smiling when he is talking agriculture. He is setting out reference books to check out on gardening and preserving.

I have talked to alot of people in the past at different events, but not for awhile and I talked to so many people today that I am now hoarse/have a sore throat this evening. I might have to brew up some tea and put lemon & honey in it. I gave away well over 200 packets of seed to people who promised to grow it out and bring it back next year. Some people did bring in some seed to trade.. but most I gave seed to and educated them on how to save it and to bring it back next year to share. I hope at least 50 packets come back in 2010.

Picture Above: The nutritionist with the province of Canada talking to people about locally grown foods and the importance of fresh vegetables.

"Seedy Saturday's" are very important as over 10,000 varieties of our heritage varieties of gardening seed is lost and extinct forever. 7,000 named apple trees existed in North American in1900, today there are less than 1,000. And 60 breeds of livestock go extinct each year worldwide. If you want to host one, GO FOR IT! They are held all over North America and in the UK.. but there is absolutely no reason to hold them anywhere you live.

I did not get alot of pictures as I was setting up and then people started to come in so I got busy teaching people, so hopefully some of the other people who took pictures will send them on to us.

But it was so fun putting this on and amazing how smoothly it went together and how the event itself flowed . Time just flew by today. We four, who put this on, have other agricultural events planned in the future. I also met wonderful people today who we will be keeping in contact with each other.