Growing together: Saskatoon gardeners exchange ideas, swap seeds at Seedy Saturday

Spring is almost upon us and Seedy Saturday is still going strong after 20 years. 

The annual Saskatoon event ran Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. CST at Station 20 West. 

Hosted by CHEP Good Food — a non-profit that works to promote access to healthy food and food security — the event draws crowds every year. This year, organizers expected around 1,000 people. 

Seedy Saturday aims to promote the sharing of ideas between urban gardeners and hosts a large seed exchange. 

Also present this year were panellists who promote the importance of universities and students in addressing food insecurity, a professor talking about the affect genetically modified organisms have on food sovereignty, and two authors who wrote about growing fruit in northern gardens. 

Jessie Best with CHEP Good Food said she thinks urban gardening has seen a surge in popularity in recent years, and thinks the sense of knowing exactly where food is coming from could be playing a role in that.  

"I think people are really interested in just being able to have a direct hand in their own food system and gardening is one of the best and most successful ways to do that," Best said.

"There are concerns with our global food system and food distribution and how fresh our food is, so I think it's a really great way for people to be able to see what they can grow here [and] access really fresh food just right out of their backyard."

Gardening techniques

Best said working at CHEP has afforded her the opportunity to meet gardeners across the province.

"[I have gotten] to see how people produce food in cultural ways that differs from culture to culture. There's a large immigrant community who [are] involved in community gardening in Saskatoon so it's been really wonderful to see how people from around the world garden a little bit differently."

She said she tries to incorporate the different techniques as much as she can in her own gardening.