Rossland Real Food and the Rossland Council for Arts and Culture are welcoming some of the best local seed growers in the West Kootenays to Rossland’s annual Seedy Sunday at the Miners’ Hall on Sunday March 11.
“Rossland Real Food is really excited to host this for the second year, because it’s hard sometimes to find local seed that it really good, and people tend to be keen on heritage and heirloom varieties," said Rachael Roussin, co-coordinator for Rossland Real Food.
There are five different farms coming to the seed swap, which she said will ensure that all of those things will be available.
The seeds will be of the vegetable and fruit variety.
“So nothing too strange,” Roussin said. “Everything that grows well in the Kootenays. So really good carrot varieties, beans, squash, tomatoes, peppers, herbs such as basil.”
She said people around here are always looking for good spinach, kale and lettuce varieties as well, which will be on hand.
All of the seeds are varieties that are grown in the West Kootenay, so they do well in this climate.
Roussin said that a lot of times the seeds that you buy from the bigger supermarkets come from big growers that grow seeds in places like the Southern United States, and even Canadian seed growers will a lot of the time grow seeds in more temperate places like the West Coast.
“The advantage of buying the seed from local West Kootenay seed companies is first, they aren’t going to be genetically modified or tampered with and the second is that they are very well conditioned for our climate,” she said.
“So if you buy a spinach seed from here and it says that it will grow in 45 days, it’s going to do that.”
Roussin cautioned however that the event is about growing good food and not advocacy against the big seed growers.
There will be a wide variety of vegetable, fruit and flower seeds for sale grown right here in the West Kootenays including heirloom and heritage varieties and organic seed potatoes.
Seeds that are grown in our region are well adapted to our climate and are more resilient to local pests and weather patterns.
Farms that will be selling seed include: Mountain Seeds, Seed Basket, Stellar Seeds and Cherry Meadows Farm.
Jeremy Lack from Mad Dog Farms in Castlegar will be giving a short presentation on growing potatoes at 4:30 p.m.
Seedy Sunday will be followed by dinner and the full length documentary film “Queen of the Sun: What are the Bees Telling Us?” that gives us a profound, alternative look at the global bee crisis.
The film takes us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive.
This engaging and ultimately uplifting film weaves an unusual and dramatic story of the heartfelt struggles of beekeepers, scientists and philosophers from around the world who together reveal both the problems and the solutions in renewing a culture in balance with nature.
Sunday, March 11 at the Rossland Miners’ Hall: Seedy Sunday 3-5:30 p.m. (FREE) Kids Crafts 3-5:30 p.m. (FREE) Growing Potatoes 101 - Mad Dog Farm 4:30 p.m. (FREE), Vegetarian Chili dinner 5:30-6:30pm ($5)