By Elsie Eubank
To The Haldimand Press
HALDIMAND—The very popular Haldimand Horticultural Society (HHS)’s annual Seedy Saturday took place virtually this year on March 20, 2021 and it still created quite a buzz in the air.
Seedysaturdayhaldimand.com was a beehive of activity all day, and it was another huge success thanks to Michael Richards, who set up the website, managed the speaker sessions, and co-ordinated all the activities on the site.
The speaker sessions got glowing reviews in the feedback section on the site with positive comments. The presentations were very well done, informative, and interesting.
Nancy Lee-Colibaba explained all about herbs, including the health benefits, how and when to use them, and how to preserve them. I am going to make sure I plant lots of herbs this year.
Julia Dimakos gave an amazing presentation on vegetable gardening. She showed photos and talked about her own gardens, how she started out and how they grew and expanded from a backyard garden to 7,000 square feet of gardens. Julia is a very passionate gardener and this was easy to see in her presentation. Now I can’t wait to get out there and get started in my own garden.
Rebecca Last is shown making her presentation on Saturday about heritage tomatoes.
Rebecca Last gave an excellent presentation on heritage tomatoes. I couldn’t believe that tomatoes could be grown in so many colours with such a variety of flavours. I love the blue tomatoes; I really have to grow some of them this year. When I think of heritage tomatoes I just thought of the nice red tomatoes with more flavour, the old varieties that used to be grown in the farm gardens. Who knew there was such a wide variety of colours and flavours out there?
Rebecca Last also gave an interesting presentation on edible gardens; I didn’t know there were so many plants that you could eat. It was a very interesting presentation and I’m sure the plants are very tasty, but I don’t think I want to start eating all of my plants.
A slide from Rebecca Last’s presentation.
After each of the presentations there was a chance for participants to ask questions and have them answered by the presenters.
As well as the live speaker presentations, there is a pre-recorded video on the website by Cathy Nesbitt from Cathy’s Crawly Composters. Cathy explains the nutritional value and health benefits of sprouts – a video well worth watching.
There was just so much offered on the site for our gardeners to get them excited and ready to garden.
I was kept busy filling seed exchange orders from our virtual seed swap page. The seed exchange was always something that was very popular at our in-person Seedy Saturdays and our virtual version proved to be just as popular.
There are lots of reasons to visit seedysaturdayhaldimand.com still as the site will be active for a few months and many activities are still available.
There is a section on the site for Seed Starting 101 and Pollinator Gardens; you will want to check out these articles as there is a lot of good information.
The variety of exhibitors were very happy with the traction they were getting from the site.
There is a free DIY activity on the site to make your own chicken wire plant cage. This was a popular workshop that HHS has done and some other societies had asked for the instructions, so we have shared for everyone to enjoy.
One of the fundraising activities on the site is an insect motel workshop, one that I have held a few times and proves to be very popular as it helps protect our pollinators. The insect motel kits are for sale with the whole kit, including the filler material and instructions on where to place it and how to maintain it.
HHS members are selling excess plants and bulbs; there is a full list of what is available on the website.
Haldimand Horticultural Society would like to thank all our sponsors that supported us and made this event possible. We would also like to thank Haldimand County, Ontario Horticultural Association, and OMAFRA for the grants that we receive that make it possible for us to do the things we do, like our community gardens and memorial trees.
Thanks to my favourite daughter-in-law Veronica Heiderich for helping with the photos from this event.
Stay tuned for our future events; next up is a virtual plant sale and garden tour on July 10 called Blooming On The Grand. We will also be having a yard, porch, or door of the month competition this year. So decorate your doors for special occasions or just for the season and spruce up your gardens; we will be watching.
Elsie Eubank is the Publicity Chair for the Haldimand Horticultural Society.
