seed saving gathering port townsend, wa 1.31.2010

Posted by Peace is real! Peace is real!
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Seedy Saturday, An Old Fashioned Seed Exchange
by Julie Jaman
photos by Julie jaman


such a bi`joy experience to be here with such sensitive folks with hands on experiences as we collect local seed/root to take home + precerve special perrenials that are our food/medicine from long ago, as folks have nurtured their growth. folks it is so wrong to stay ignorant + buy GMO monsanto business whor mode food. please become aware of the damage monsanot + like that are doing geneneticlly modified food, as well Bill Gates foundation in africa is so wrong, see - roots of change. GMO is interfering in our natural wild biodiversity that keeps us healthy. so our pests remain in check from healthy old growth microbes, as well pollinate our seed, cleanse our air + rivers. look at navdanyas web blog on monsanto, they expose the freedom taken away from local farmers as they get penalized, same here in US as local farmers cannot use their own seed. do your homework with this + keep us posted so we can reach out with truth. accept nothing less than natual living so you can rewire + build new neuro networks, reprogram that pathway which has made us ill as you/we became dependent on fast food, others ideals that had lost the indigenous ways that work, see miguel altieri's agro-ecology. jenny pell permaculture, shiva navdanya + others.    

  

  


The Saturday morning about 25 people spent with Steve Baker at the old fashioned seed exchange was an unexpected pleasure.
Steve is very knowledgeable about growing local spice and vegetable varieties and saving the seed,  Steve is  a terrific from-scratch cook as well as a grower and he shared  a few of his recipes for mustards, vinegars and comestibles concocted from a variety of spice seeds.

Tessa Gowan, the owner of and grower for Seed Dreams (available at the Co-op), was at the exchange.
She shared her years of experience with growing and saving some of the best local heirloom vegetables and flowers
Both Steve and Tessa were very encouraging  about experimenting and using open pollinated varieties.

We all joined into the discussion with questions and experiences to add to the information being shared about collecting
and properly storing seed for good quality and viability: containers, temperatures, longevity.

There were plenty of seeds to share and trade, not to be found in usual catalogues.  The more we moved about the room
looking at the various collections the more exciting the prospects of sprouting  new seeds and prepping for spring planting.

It looks like this Canadian tradition of the Seedy Saturday Seed Exchange will become an annual event at Quimper Grange.  Leigh Wheaton and John Barr
Tessa Gowans answers questions.A lovely flower seed collection
Steve Baker shared his knowledge and his seeds.

thanks Julie so much for overview.

for interested parties I just wanted to add clay little pots made locally
is a nice way to preserve seeds in a box with sand. those that sprout
would
have a gauze cover + those that don't would have a cover. nice in root
cellar or dark cool place. also parchment paper but research which type
for
folding correctly so don't loose seeds + labeled saves room if room is an
issue.. along with a friendly log of history + contact, to know your
seeds
information.

this is fun ideals with the seed fair to do a walkabout, see pdf
attached..

peace, kara