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Not a Seeds of Diversity Member yet? Join now!In this Issue: Bring Food Home: Scaling Up Ecological Seed Production in Canada Fall Friendraiser and AGM in Saskatoon
Have you renewed your membership for 2014??Check the expiry date on your Harvest 2014 magazine if you aren't sure. Seedy Gift IdeasAdopt a Seed Give the gift of seed preservation - Seed Library adoptions give forever! How to Save Your Own Seeds - for the expert, or merely curious....
Beautiful Painted Mountain Flint Corn - just donated to our Seed Library!
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November Travels & December Giving
We've been all over the country this month: Saskatoon for our AGM, Windsor for the Bring Food Home Conference, Moncton for the ACORN conference, Montreal for Food Secure Canada. It's been fantastic to meet and work with such a range of passionate, engaged folks. We're sharing a few highlights in this month's articles.
As we head towards December, we're also thinking ahead to the season of gift-giving and we're sharing a few gift ideas for the gardener or seed lover in your life. If you're feeling generous, we would be happy to put your donations to use supporting one of our many exciting projects
Finally, we wanted to remind you that many of your membership renewals are due next month. Watch for renewal notices in your inbox!
Seedy Gifts for the Holidays
We have some gift ideas for the gardener or seed lover in your life - inspire a new OR experienced seed saver with the newly-released How To Save Your Own seed guidebook, or give a gift of food security that will last for many lifetimes by adopting a seed variety into our Canadian Seed Library. We also have a tip for new donors that gives right back to you!
Bring Food Home: Scaling Up Ecological Seed Production in Canada
A couple of us from the Seeds of Diversity Office in Waterloo had the pleasure of attending this year’s Bring Food Home Conference put on by Sustain Ontario. The conference theme, “Building Bridges Together” was an acknowledgement of the need to bring together individuals and organizations from diverse sectors to generate action on food and farm issues. One of the sessions brought together a panel of commercial and non-profit leaders in local seed production to highlight different market development strategies and explore barriers to scaling up ecologically produced vegetable seed in Canada.
Erosion in the garden
Autumn is well underway and the crops are almost all harvested for the year. Before the fields are fully put to bed under a blanket of snow, it’s worth considering what will be done to protect the soil. Each year, 20 million hectares of land are rendered unusable by erosion (see Planetoscope for global statistics in real time: www.planetoscope.com ). Given that the formation of a centimeter of soil can take thousands of years, the process of erosion – when considered on a human scale - can be seen as almost irreversible.
Fall Friendraiser and AGM in Saskatoon
It was -23°C in Saskatoon, but the smiles were warm at our Annual General Meeting and Friendraiser on November 9.
Michelle Smith, all the way from Cape Breton Island, and local seed growers Jim Ternier and his daughter Rachelle started the afternoon with a Basic Seed Saving presentation to a packed room of eager gardeners and farmers. Michelle is a seed grower and representative of the Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security. Her experience growing seeds, and guiding new seed growers through the challenges of producing and selling quality seeds has given her a lucid and sensible way of explaining even the more complex principles behind our craft. Jim and Rachelle operate Prairie Garden Seeds, and delighted everyone with samples of many-coloured heritage tomatoes, beans, lettuce seeds, and a few unusual seeds that even the experts didn't recognize.