Food fans from across the region filed into the Qualicum Beach Civic Centre Saturday to stock up on seeds for the coming growing season.
The Seedy Saturday event, said organizer Sandy Glazier, was once again a big hit with both producers and consumers, with 2,413 people taking part.
“We had a big crowd, about the same as last year,” Glazier said. “We changed the layout from the year before because of the congestion and the traffic flow went very well.”
The 40 vendors sold everything from garden seed to gardening equipment and gardening advice, taking advantage of a buzz of excitement for the event, seen by many as one of the first harbingers of spring.
Glazier said the seed swap, which sees growers collect seeds from their gardens and swap them for locally produced seeds from other gardeners, saw any seed packet with the word tomato on it get snapped up quickly.
“The tomatoes went extremely fast,” she said. “People really want the heritage varieties.”
Although the theme of this year’s event was somewhat different — pollination — Glazier said most of Seedy Saturday remains the same year after year, because it works very well, just as it is.
Some of the money raised by Seedy Saturday goes towards education programs about seed saving and gardening, both in the wider community and in local schools.
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