As we alluded in our preview last week, PentictonNow dropped by the once-a-year Seedy Saturday event this past weekend at Okanagan College with a singular goal - to learn how to sustainably plant a crazily steep slope in our front yard that gets full sun and very little water.
Erosion control is a priority.
But then we ran into Shirley Wells. With husband Ken, Wells runs a farm just east of Kamloops called Laughing Swan. And together, they exemplify what Seedy Saturday is all about.
Every spring, Shirley and Ken hit all the Okanagan Seedy Saturdays, where they sell, not surprisingly, seeds. But not just any old seeds.
Any seed you buy from the Wellses comes direct from their riverside farm and thusly has a long Okanagan lineage. Such seeds are called "heirloom seeds," and they're a great way to ensure the plant you grow is a good fit in our region. They also eliminate corporate middlemen.
But the Wellses do more than dispense seeds. They also impart knowledge. And lots of it, mostly geared to help regular folks understand what they need and make them a greener gardener.
"I love sharing about gardening," said Shirley Wells Saturday. "So at a Seedy Saturday, people come and ask questions and I can give them direct answers. This isn't our main income. The joy is in the sharing of knowledge."
She ultimately spent 20 minutes yapping with us about our vegetable garden and what we have to do to make it not suck. We learned a ton.
Next, we wanted to tackle our steep slope issue. And that's when we happened upon a whiz named Eva Durance.
Durance, a landscape designer and member of First Things First Okanagan, had just hosted a busy Seedy Saturday talk on xeriscape gardening (a form of low-water landscaping ideally suited to our semi-arid climate), and was happy to oblige.
We learned about the benefits of micro-irrigation and mulching. We realized our idea of adding a top layer of gravel wasn't really such a great idea after all. And we abandoned our hopes of planting right to the top. Sometimes, you just have to accept the small losses.
And from Grow-Low Sumac to Potentilla (the yellow one, said Durance, because it's hardier) to an ornamental grass called Indiangrass, we came away with a good feel for the drought-resistant varieties we'd be seeking. All are available locally.
On our way out, we stopped and chatted with Alice Strohmaier of Seedy Saturday host Incredible Edible Penticton. She was thrilled with the turnout in this, the second year Incredible Edible has run the event after being handed the reins by longtime organizer Laurel Burnham in January of 2019.
"We had so little time to prepare for last year's event," said Strohmaier of the 2019 turnover that came about only after Burnham's recurring battle with cancer had rendered her too unwell to continue.
"We had just three weeks last year, and this kind of thing usually take months to put together," she added. "But we've been busy all day today. We've probably had 400 or more though so far."
Fittingly, there was a donation bin at Saturday's event in Burnham's name. Strohmaier was one of a multitude of friends and admirers Burnham left behind when she passed in July of 2019.
The date for the 2021 Seedy Saturday is not yet set. But for more info in the meantime on Incredible Edible, which, strives toward "creating a community of kindness" and runs a community garden in downtown Penticton, check out their Facebook page.
