Denver Seed School in a Day- A Great Success!

On Saturday, August 20th nearly 20 eager participants gathered at DeLaney Community Farm in Aurora, Colorado for Seed School in a Day! This course was made possible through a grant from The Posner Center for International Development received by tenants: Denver Urban Gardens (DUG), Friends of ENCA Farm (FoE), and outside collaborator The Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance (RMSA).

 

Seed School in a Day is a dynamic program created by RMSA, the jam packed one-day workshop offers a comprehensive overview of seed saving. Practical, hands-on activities are balanced with engaging lectures to provide a fun and interactive learning experience. Participants leave the workshop with a deeper understanding of why regional seed saving is so important and the skills needed to start their own seed saving adventures!

Our course included this learning and so much more! Participants ranged from seasoned seed savers, community gardeners, backyard gardeners, educators and community non-profit partners. The dynamic and infectious passion of lead facilitator Penn Parmenter of Miss Penn’s Mountain Seeds in Westcliffe, Colorado set a fun and engaging tone for the day. Participants learned about the history of seed saving, how to save specific seeds including tomatoes, beans, squash and more. They also learned how to conduct their own germination tests on seeds and connected with the growing community of people returning to the historic practice of saving seeds.

The first half of the course was held at the beautiful 5 acre DeLaney Community Farm, which provided a fantastic natural classroom for many of the lessons including; observing how to self-pollinate squash in the field, and a brief wild seed walk in the fields at DeLaney where participants observed wild dill, cat-nip, and other wild plants.

img_2579

Participants left the course inspired to take the knowledge they learned and implement it at their home and community gardens.

“The class opened my eyes to a whole new-critical-aspect of gardening this offers hope for healthy food production in the face of climate change and population challenges.”

-Carol, Seed School Participant

“ I learned so much! I can’t wait to get home and turn my basement into a seed palace.”

– Amy, Seed School Participant

In November staff from DUG and RMSA will be traveling to the Philippines with Friends of ENCA Farm to conduct Seed School and Farmer Capacity Building with organic farmers in the Philippines.

We are so grateful for the opportunity to share this powerful seed saving knowledge with Denver and the Philippines and build a global community of seed stewards and advocates!

To learn more about our collaborators in this work please visit:

The Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance website

Denver Urban Gardens website