An activity that Salmon Arm’s June Griswold has been doing for decades is taking on much more significance.
Griswold is a seed saver. As a homesteader in the Kootenays for more than 20 years, saving seeds for the next season was simply a part of life.
She and her husband Harry lived on more than 80 acres near Kaslo without power.
“We were the most self-sufficient people in the area,” she says, explaining they bought very little from the store, never used sprays and always saved seeds, especially potatoes and peas. “It was our way of doing – we didn’t have much money.”
These days, the world is seeing ever-increasing threats to its food supply, including less genetic diversity of plants. As the Canadian Seeds of Diversity website points out, diversity allows species to withstand threats like disease, climate change, pests and more. When people rely on commercial seed companies, seeds that sell slowly simply get dropped from production and disappear.
When Griswold moved to Springbend, between Grindrod and Enderby, she met Gabriele Wesle of Green Croft Gardens, a certified organic farm in Grindrod. In 1995 they started Shuswap Seed Savers.
“You hear more and more about so many of the seed species disappearing. Then they start making the hybrid seeds, then the other seeds – terminator seeds, GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds – those aren’t organic. Our focus is on organic and natural,” says Griswold.
Griswold and Wesle decided they needed to do something about saving seeds so people would have good seeds for the future.
Come this Saturday, March 5, Shuswap Seed Savers will be holding their 17th Annual Shuswap Seed Swap and Sale. The event will feature more than 30 vendors selling seeds, vegetables, baking, foods, crafts and other products. Three years ago, a seed bank was created. A seed bank table will be set up at Saturday’s event, where people can learn about the system for accepting and cataloguing seeds.
“Some of them have to be grown out each year as some seeds aren’t viable for too many years,” explains Griswold.
As a longtime seed saver, Griswold’s specialty is Orach, sometimes called mountain spinach, which she was given 30 years ago, and still swaps. It’s the first green in her garden each spring, she notes.
The Shuswap Seed Swap and Sale will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at A.L. Fortune School, 500 Bass Ave. in Enderby. For more information, call 250-832-2355 or 250-838-6581.