Frost on the rooftops some of these mornings – all the more reason for the townspeople of Qualicum Beach to head off to the Civic Centre for Seedy Saturday on February 1st. This annual event started as a place where gardeners could exchange their saved seed, often heirloom, some organic and indulge in their wintertime fantasies of the coming garden season.

I’d never heard of Seedy Saturday before I moved here but apparently it takes place in many communities across Canada and in the U.K. Over the years the event in this town has grown far beyond its gardener-to-gardener seed trading roots, although that is still happening, to also include 70 vender tables of people with small seed businesses, many of them local to Vancouver Island, as well as sellers of assorted perennials, flowering hellebores, birdhouses and fruit trees. Some local organic farmers had tables to promote their businesses and in some cases were selling seasonal weekly product box deliveries. Throughout the day expert speakers gave talks on GMO’s, organic gardening and seed saving. In the morning, the busiest time, it was sometimes hard to get close to the vendor tables as all around people were having animated conversations with the vendors and each other as they recounted their particular challenges and successes growing this or that last season. A magnificent obsession. Over 2500 people attended last Saturday. An impressive turnout given that our town has a population of 8000. We must have let a few outsiders in.

The volunteer Chair of the committee that puts this on year after year is a neighbor of mine and is, I believe, an excellent volunteer Chair. How do I know? Because she recruited me to volunteer at Seedy Saturday, that’s how, despite my hitherto unbroken “no volunteering” pledge. However I was able to justify it as my job was to entail attending ZERO meetings. I don’t do meetings. I “did” enough in my lifetime so far to last many many lifetimes. This job was OK though, I was to be an event day floor volunteer.

My assignment was to take care of the tables at the Seedy Cafe, a couple of rooms at the end of the hall beside the kitchen, for 2 hours, 12:00-2:00. People would order their food from the catering kitchen window beside the stage, pick it up around the corner and sit down at one of the 10 or so tables. My job was to pick up and stack dirty dishes, clean tables between sit downs, and generally direct people to sit at shared tables. I had a volunteer partner. She immediately grabbed a wet cloth and took over the job of cleaning tables. OK by me. There really wasn’t enough for two people to do, so it became a little comical as we were both really underemployed. We both walked around waiting to pick up a plate – but most of the time people would take their own dirty plates to the side trollies and bus bins. On several occasions people would drop off their own plates, nod to me (with my volunteer tag around my neck) and even say “thank you” as they went back to the show floor for more shopping.  Thank me for what? You did all my work for me. Canadians are polite. Most.

After watching people eat for awhile my volunteer partner and I became aware that there was something different about the food we were looking. It was fantastic. The back of the stage at a civic center is not where I’d expect anything from anyone. But here, well, this was special. A beautiful squash soup that was made from someone’s big harvest of organic squash, the chicken wraps were from organic, free run local poultry, the salads were fresh and gorgeous and the chili, both meat and vegetarian, was thick and aromatic. Gluten free baked goods were available. Desserts were fresh baked cookies, biscotti and carrot cake. Simple menu, great cooks. Outstanding home cooking in the Civic Center. Who knew.

I spent most of the rest of the shift standing around with my co-volunteer, inhaling the food odors and discussing what we were going to eat when 2:00 came around. We checked out each plate that passed us by, changing our minds with every new dish. From time to time she would clean a table with her rag and I would wrestle with a customer to try to take the dirty plate away from them. But mostly we just planned lunch.

As for shopping – just a couple of seed packages, but I do have a plant list developing. The GreenHouse is already waking up – I spent a week or so in January bringing 34 fuchsias resting under the benches up top for revival – repotting, root pruning, branch shaping. Most are leafing out already. Soon, likely next week, I’ll be seeding blue poppies from my own saved seed, sweet peas in a month, cherry tomatoes and other things later. Like the other 2499 dreamy dreaming gardeners at Seedy Saturday this past weekend, I got my fix of mid-winter garden fantasies. To keep going while the garden looks like this…

Dreaming of The Garden last August