By Adam Donnelly

Seedy Saturday celebrates spring, even with Kamloops still gripped by winter

Mar 4, 2019 | 11:29 AM

KAMLOOPS — Winter showed up late this year, but it’s certainly sticking around until the bitter end. The cold February has been especially tough on people who enjoy digging in the dirt in their spare time, but the chilly temperatures didn’t stop folks from coming together to celebrate Seedy Saturday at OLPH this weekend. The annual event has become the unofficial start to gardening season for many in the city, and for many of those who attend, the most important seeds aren’t always the ones getting planted in the ground.

It’s been too cold for most gardeners to do much except shovel snow in the last month, but that didn’t stop them from coming out to the fourth annual Seedy Saturday event to start preparing for the upcoming growing season.

“I think people are chomping at the bit to get started,” Seedy Saturday Organizer Daniella Basille said. “They’re wondering when is winter going to be over?”

Producers from all across the region came together to share seeds, plants, and knowledge of growing with interested gardeners of all abilities. The Van Oeveren’s own Tasty Acres Farm in Salmon Arm, and have been coming to Seedy Saturday in Kamloops every year the event has been held.

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“It’s so early in the season,” Mary-Ann Van Overen told CFJC Today. “People are still really willing to go ahead and buy items to plant in spring. People are tired of winter.”

While there are all kinds of vendors at the event, the stars of the show are the seeds. This year, the Kamloops Food Policy Council (KFPC) took over the seed exchange at Seedy Saturday, which is meant to share the wealth among gardeners.

“$2.95, $3.95 [for] a package [of seeds] – it adds up pretty fast,” Sandra Frangiadakis, Food Action Lead with the KFPC said. “If someone doesn’t want to spend a pile of money on seed, they can just come get some free, and sometimes you’ll find interesting seed that you might not find somewhere else.”

The Food Policy Council also used the event to help build awareness of their seed library, which allows members to borrow seed at the beginning of the growing season and return it to the library after harvest.

“Hopefully in the fall when you harvest, you get enough seed to save some for yourself and also return some to the seed library,” Frangiadakis explained. “Thereby, we build up our stocks over the years.”

For Basille, the seeds planted in the minds of those who come to the event are just as important as the ones that will end up in the ground.

“People really start conversing, even with strangers,” Basille said. “A lot of the people that are here vending have a lot of knowledge about the things that they’re selling, and [people] ask questions. and the [vendors] can answer those questions and get a good answer.”

With the ground outside still frozen, it’s those mind-seeds that will germinate first; making sure by the time spring comes, these gardeners will be ready to get growing.