Vendors at annual Montreal gardening event let you learn the story behind the seed
Can a seed tell a story?
Teprine Baldo thinks storytelling is one of the advantages small-scale seed sharers like herself offer.
She started a seed farm and created a company, Le Noyau Seeds three years ago. They learn traditional gardening practices from Indigenous seed savers, and employ those practices at their seed farm.
Baldo has learned the importance of sharing the stories and myths behind a variety.
"We end up selling kind of neat different varieties that you wouldn't get from a farmer's basket," she said.
Urban farmers interested in special seeds can meet Baldo at Seedy Weekend — an event on all weekend at Montreal's Planetarium.
Twenty exhibitors from the local agri-food industry will be there to help urban gardeners get a head start on spring. Baldo is bringing a seed collection from her farm in Frelighsburg, about 100 kilometres southeast of Montreal.
Gaëlle Janvier, a member of Cultiver Montreal, one of the organizations behind the event, said there are many stories behind each variety, and because seeds have a shelf life of a few years, it's important to keep growing them in order to keep the species alive.
"It's great to talk to the guy who has been collecting bean seeds for like, seven years," she said.
Creating connections
Baldo said she makes a point of printing the history of the variety on her seed packages when she knows it.
One of her farm partners, Stephen McComber, grows the seeds handed down to him by his grandparents in his backyard garden in Kahnawake.
"You know, you can go buy a package of seeds at Wal-Mart and other than just telling you, oh, it's 90 days or whatever, there's no other information about it," said McComber.
When a gardener knows the story behind the variety, like the seeds passed down to him or ones gifted to him by other communities, it helps establish a connection to what's being planted and where it comes from, he said.
Each year, he plants traditional varieties of corn, squash and beans.
McComber says he has varieties of corn that few people grow, such as multi-coloured, blue, or red corn.
Growing traditional plants is just a part of Mohawk culture, he said.
