Seed Saving Celebration / Ag Céiliuruidh na Síoltai 2024

1–5pm

The Seed It Union returns to CCA following a successful seed saving days in December 2022 and November 2023. You can take part in a mixture of activities. You will help process the seeds, including tomato, pumpkin, beans, leeks and lettuce. You will also get the chance to weigh and package the seeds for distribution to local community growing organisations. There will be a creative activity whereby you can make pictures using the seed residue. If you bring seeds, you will have the chance to say what you have brought and what they mean to you. Seeds have stories and we will have the chance to hear more about them.

Representatives from community gardens from across the north of Ireland will use this as an opportunity to meet to discuss their next steps as part of The Seed It Union and their year ahead. 

This is an in-person event, that will take place at CCA Derry~Londonderry, 10-12 Artillery Street, 1–5pm. It is a free, drop in session, suitable for all ages. No booking is required. All welcome.

The schedule of the day: Seed It Union Annual Celebration – Ag Céiliuruidh Na Síoltai Saturday 23 November 2024

1.00pm Event Opens – We will be checking seeds in at the welcome desk, these will either go for processing (if they haven’t been cleaned) or for weighing out and packing if they are good to go.

1.30pm Seed Saving Demo 1 – Summer Squash: Part of the Gaia Foundation Crowd Seed Breeding Project, we will be cutting up two different Summer Squashes and extracting and cleaning their seeds. These are part of a project to breed a genetically diverse summer squash Grex that will grow well outdoors in our climate

2.30pm Soup Time!! followed by Short Film 1 – Apples and Damsons*

3.00pm Seed Saving Demo 2 – Artistic Tomatoes: We will be saving seed from a range of different tomatoes that have made it all the way to the end of November – we will keep these late season survivors separate and grow them as a late season cropper next year to see if our selection is developing tolerance to colder temperatures and lower daylight hours

3.30pm Seed Dating!!* An alternative take on the Speed Dating format for people who want to have a fling with a new variety! 

*Seed Dating!! You have one minute to sell your variety to someone who hasn’t grown it before, and be persuaded in turn by them! In a traditional speed dating format, this should be informative and hilarious in equal measure!

4.00pm Short Film 2 – Nettles and Hawthorn*

*Our two short films are from the Seed Sistas, a medical herbalist/deep ecology performance art collective! One on Apples and Damsons (18 min), one on Nettles and Hawthorn (16 min)

5.00pm Finish and takedown.

Throughout we will be processing, weighing and packing seeds, helping compile the catalogue for the Seed It Union Seed Library @ CCA, and sharing our stories and experiences to help us celebrate the amazing vitality and adaptability of our seedy co-creators of the biosphere around us!

Seed Order 2025 Sheets will be up on the walls – create your wish list while the inspiration is all around you!

Bring digital copies of your best plant / seed images on phone or other format so we can get them printed out for the Seed Library catalogue!

We will have envelopes and labels available to take away at the end if we haven’t got through all the packing, we really appreciate all the homework members did last year – Thank You!!