Seedy Saturday attracted many seed growers, beekeepers and community members to Creekside Seniors Centre.
The event, which took place on April 5, saw around 150 people attend the show which featured seed sales, a seed exchange, information on gardening and information booths crewed by local South Cariboo experts. Attendees were also invited to browse through a garage sale and silent auction and attend two seminars run by the Horse Lake Community Farm Co-Op.
"It's a springtime celebration that we've been holding for quite a number of years. We believe it dates back to the year 2000, if not sooner," Rob Diether, the chairperson of the Horse Lake Community Farm Co-Op who organizes the event, said.
The entrance to the event was by donation, which helped to pay for renting Creekside Seniors Centre and fund some improvements to the Horse Lake Community Co-Op farm, specifically, a new root cellar.
"It's where we store vegetables, sort of a semi-underground building. With this very old technology, we are able to store our potatoes and other roots all winter long," Diether said, adding that the current root cellar needs to be replaced. Other projects that the Co-Op farm is planning include a forest floor project, as well as hosting school field trips.
"They're going to find out a little bit about farming, and they're also going to learn about the biology - the local ecology," Diether said.
One of the vendors in attendance was Mount Timothy Farm Products, which is owned and operated by Stephanie Klausat. The farm is a greenhouse producer and plans to open up farm gate sales starting May 1 in their garden and greenhouse on 5790 Timothy Lake Road.
"One time I was also selling vegetables and some cut flowers, perennials and whatever the farm produced - some fruit, even raspberries. But now we've basically scaled down to doing just annual flowers and some perennials for the farmers market," Klausat said. She sells tomato baskets, flower baskets and a large variety of tomato plants - as well as different types of herbs and annual flowers.
Klausat said Seedy Saturday has been lovely for her because she does not go to the South Cariboo Farmers' Market anymore.
"My daughter goes for me, right here - she goes for me, and so for me on Seedy Saturday, I get to see all the people that I don't normally see," Klausat said, adding her daughter is Sophia Jackson, the owner of Mother Hulda's Garden, who was also in attendance.
Another vendor was Brenda Dyck, who is involved with the Cariboo Seed Project and operates the Guerrilla Garden Adventures. This Cariboo Seed Project brings seeds from across the world to the Cariboo to see what will and won't grow. On the Guerrilla Garden Adventures Instagram page, Dyck describes herself as a "self-styled guerrilla gardener who hopes her adventures will inspire you to make the world a greener, happier and more creative place."
"There's people who love gardening, and they're very rigid in how they garden. I am not that kind of gardener. I don't do English formal gardening. I do chaos gardening," Dyck explained. "I break all the gardening rules and decide to grow a lot of stuff, whether people say you can or not."
Dyck says that chaos gardening involves way less work than normal gardening because she does not have to bend over as much.
"You don't really have to weed it, because it grows so close," she said. "No weeds grow and it's a lot of fun."
Seeds are the reason Dyck decided to go to Seedy Saturday, where she loves trading and bringing them.
"And I want to encourage people to start growing their own seeds," she noted.
Diether said he and the rest of the Horse Lake Farm Co-Op love organizing Seedy Saturday. He noted the event marks the start of the spring season for local gardeners.
"It's come to be known as a really first event in spring, and it heralds the gardening season. People have been hunkered down all winter and they're anxious to grow so this is really the start of the whole thing - the start of the growing season."
