›› Kayla Siefried
Never was there a more exciting time (and at times overwhelming) for local gardeners then the annual Victoria Seedy Saturday. A conference full of vendors, seed swaps, and gardening workshops; it’s the day that kicks off the growing season for Victorians. Alas, we are still living in a pandemic, so the regular in-person Seedy Saturday will not happen this year. Luckily, Farm Folk City Folk are hosting a virtual province wide Seedy Saturday, February 19 to 21, 2021.
While details have yet to be released, you can look forward to informative speakers and opportunities to network and swap seeds across the province. Check the website at bcseeds.org for more info.
If you’re wanting to get seed shopping as soon as possible (which I recommend, as demand for seeds due to the pandemic have ballooned as so many more people get growing), the Compost Education Centre has contactless sales available for both Full Circle Seeds and Metchosin Farm Seeds. You can check out the seed varieties we will be carrying on our website (compost.bc.ca) and come to purchase the seeds Wednesdays through Saturdays when we are open.
I highly recommend local seed growers, who are doing amazing work to preserve local seed diversity, and have very well adapted seed for our very unique climate.
Besides Full Circle and Metchosin, other local seed vendors I recommend include Saanich Organics, Salt Spring Island Seeds, and the BC Eco Seed Coop.
There are also neat initiatives that don’t even involve the money! The Lifecycles Project Society runs the Victoria Seed Library in partnership with the Greater Victoria Public Library. You get trained on how to save seeds, then take seeds out on loan from the library, grow and eat the produce, and save some of the seed from the plants for returning to the library.
There’s also some incredible initiatives that have arisen out of the pandemic—like the Victoria Seed Share initiative run by volunteers who repack and distribute surplus seeds that are donated.
So get thinking about what you’d like to grow and make a list of what seeds you would like to plant this year, and head down to the Compost Education Centre to see what’s available.
