Seedy Sunday

Seedy Sunday is the UK's biggest and longest-running community seed swap event, held in Brighton each February. In return for a donation or in exchange for seed they have saved, growers can choose seeds from dozens of traditional varieties of garden vegetables, to take home and grow. It is also a campaign to to protect biodiversity and protest against the increasing control of the seed supply by a handful of large companies.

We've been meaning to attend the event for a couple of years now, but for various reasons - mostly to do with a lack of organisation -  we have never managed to get there. Until this year, when FlowerScapes finally managed to have a stall, manned by me, your guest blogger for the evening, Kattegat's hubby.

The FlowerScapes stand, with our new jars of seeds

 At the heart of the event is, obviously, the seed exchange, where members of the public can bring their spare seeds to exchange for something new and different. But around three-quarters of the hall was taken up by other, related stalls - allotment societies, Friends of the Earth, a mushroom producer, the Brighton & Lewes Beekeepers, community composters, even a cooperative pub!

 

Being Brighton - home of the UK's first Green MP - the turnout was fantastic; over 3,000 people came through the doors, more than twice as many as in 2012. And the atmosphere was great, everybody very interested and friendly.

I was given an early slot to off-load my wares - 8.30 in the morning - and had the stall all set up by 9.00. That gave me an hour to wander around, drink thermos coffee and recover from the early start. But once the doors opened (there was a queue outside, apparently) at 10.00, I was on duty, on my feet and talking to the Great British Public for the next six hours solid. During that period I had maybe 2 or 3 minutes at the most without someone to chat to.

Before the hordes descended

By mid afternoon I had run out of 5g packets of seeds, had given out dozens of leaflets and was starting to flag. But the visitors kept coming, and right up to 4.00 people were still stopping to chat, even as I was packing away.

Everyone I spoke to had something positive to say about our work, and the new range of seeds in honey jars attracted lots of complements.

All in all, a very successful - if exhausting - day.