My First Seedy Saturday

Even though our local South Shore Nova Scotia area celebrated its eleventh year of bringing gardeners and community together, this actually was the first "Seedy Saturday" I have ever attended. Well it was quite an event!

One of the tables set up by the sponsor Helping Nature Heal, offered home gardeners the opportunity to share freely their extra seeds from plants grown themselves, or seeds they might have too much of. So, over the last few days..sorting..measuring.. sifting and shaking.... little baggies got filled, labeled and sealed.

The tiny broccoli seeds were the worst to separate from their dried pods but with a little crunching, smashing and forcing, they finally tumbled through the strainer, and were packaged up.

The vendors were all local! How wonderful is that. Six years ago you would be hard pressed to find folks who were seeds persons growing, packing and selling locally, and now we have quite a few wonderful, exuberant, exciting youthful people with such commitment to community .....grateful is a word that cannot be overused!

A soup lunch was offered..shared in the same family spirit of kindness and goodness ... joy germinated everywhere! And to top it off, the guest speaker was Niki Jabbour, who has done so much to promote Year Round Vegetable Gardening, her first book is a number one seller at Amazon. The presentation today was on seed starting and I noted, there were few questions as the power point gave step by step direction, with huge encouragement on how to begin this 'scary business' of starting your own seeds.

The above means, weeks before last frost.

Note the Cucamelon (sometimes referred to as Mouse Melon) on the list above. This has been getting a lot of interest and there was one vendor selling them today, packages going quite quickly I noticed.

Yes the soup was fantastic, yes the speaker was fantastic, yes, the seeds men and women were wonderful, and yes, the buzz and frizzle in the air was electric but I will tell you what this gardener loved the most. I loved seeing all the many children that attended with family or friends, the future shining in their faces. If today was a cell pack full of spouting seeds, lets just say the growth was phenomenal...that happens you know, with fertilization, handfuls of love and mutual respect measured exactly right.