Seedy Saturday Aylmer: A personal, Localeaf, behind the scenes perspective

I cannot believe what we pulled off as a community for Aylmer’s first Seedy Saturday.

I’ve been asked multiple times since last Saturday to write a blog post recapping it for anyone in our community who couldn’t be there, but I don’t know how to do that really, especially as it seems most of Aylmer did come out, stopped by, said hi, checked out free gardening workshops, picked up free seeds, chatted with our community partners, tasted the amazing culinary creations of our first ever Coupe de Soupe, and brought out any extra seeds they had to share, as well as donations for our local food bank.

The turnout was incredible, and though the waves of crowds were far too large for any of us ‘boothing’ or helping out at the event to stop and listen to the presentations, the feedback we heard from those was extremely positive as well.

To recap Seedy Saturday I need to highlight this woman.

This is Allison.

She is the smiling face you all saw at some point during the event, at times dragging a portable microphone behind her, as pictured, at times carrying large refills of seeds for the tables running low, looking composed, collected and at ease. She is the primary reason for the success of this event. She was the one who painstakingly organized us, and color-coded spreadsheets for months in the background to ensure the event was as successful as it was. She printed off every label for every package of seeds that our group of Pollinate Aylmer volunteers came together weekly to package at the Aylmer Community House, since the seeds were collected and dried string this fall.

She is the one that lugged boxes and boxes and boxes of seeds inside of her Nissan back and forth from her home once or twice a week sometimes. She took the lead on reaching out to all of the amazing seed vendors who donated seeds to make our first event a success. She placed a large Rubbermaid bin on her front porch and became the defacto drop off spot for containers, materials, seeds, tablecloths, and everything else we sourced from our community to help us reduce the footprint of our event.

She did not do it alone. She had help. So much help, in all of the hands that came together, for the months leading up to this event, to help make it the incredible success that it was. That help came personified in the army of volunteers and members of our Pollinate Aylmer community, who keep coming, week after week, cleaning, packaging, sorting and labeling seeds, and in the process feed more strength back into our community. You saw many of these community members wearing bright pink arm bands on the day of the event, there to help with any capacity needed.

On a personal level, this event was especially special to 4 of us, as it was our first opportunity to present a manifestation of our vision for a connected, community driven canopy of change, through our new non-profit, Canopée Localeaf.

We have already existed in multiple iterations of who we are becoming, first as the spark our little almost nursery ignited, then as the sprit and driving force of Pollinate Aylmer, and finally, articulated into a vision that is the start of Canopée.

Suzanne spent weeks weaving our story and beginnings into incredible visual representations of how Canopée began, before it had a name, from multiple perspectives that bring us where we are today, and where we want to go.

She tells our story through tangible books, folded moments frozen in an accordion shape, waiting to be uncovered.

They claimed the prize, a beautiful hand crafted cake stand donated by Kolo Wood & Design, and their smiles and pride were infectious. Bravo.

Throughout the day, we watched the number of requests to join our Pollinate Aylmer FB group grow, and welcomed new members into our community. We counted 279 people coming by for seeds with an old-school clicker throughout the day, not including children, volunteers or the 30 or so people at the tables.

Those moments connect the four of us in unexpected ways, from a reimagined experiential schoolyard, our first Miyawaki tiny forest, a plethora of pollinator gardens, trees grown from seed, protected from lurking critters, to students turned into little stewards growing extra plants to share forward in our community, while caring for individual trees that grow alongside them.

Our display at Seedy Saturday told this story, and people stopped by, unfolded Suzanne’s hidden photographed moments, marveled at the beauty and simplicity of our booth, found themselves and their homes and their closest Butterflyway stop on the giant Butterflyway Aylmer map behind our heads, asked questions about our baby trees, and just like that, they began to understand us, our mission and our vision.

Where they had questions, Dominique was there to answer them, with her calm, reassuring demeanor, her vast knowledge formed by decades of experience working with plants and people, as a teacher, as a volunteer at one of Ottawa ‘s most beautiful public examples of a wildlife garden, at the museum of nature, and probably so many other places I have yet to discover in our conversations.

Dominique and Suzanne presented a mini version of one of our latest workshops, Intro to Gardening for pollinators, and though I couldn’t hear them above the buzz of the room, I saw the flickers of understanding and bewilderment in the eyes of participants whose perspectives were shifted merely by listening to these incredible women speak.

Our trifecta of booths looked amazing. The giant Butterflyway Aylmer map behind us united our three tables.

Pollinate Aylmer volunteers handed out hundreds of packs of native plant seeds, collected from the nursery, dried, cleaned and packaged by our community.

Canopée Localeaf weaved the story of our community, our impact, our workshops and our vision for creating canopy and knowledge and change in pockets of underused spaces and lawns in our community, and showing our neighbours and children how to do same, and carry forward action, not just knowledge.

The Localeaf (now Jardins Localeaf) booth for the nursery showed some of the trees we are growing at the nursery, popping out of soil in anticipation of spring, and my oldest daughter helped to hand out the 4 mixed native plant packs we packaged this year, Mild Child, Wild Child, Throwing Shade and Rain Check.

She finalized our display, and showed people the ‘ingredient’ seed in each pack, and confidently answered questions about our nursery, the plants we are growing this year, our opening intentions, and so much more, as I beamed with pride watching her.

Next to us, a demonstration workshop was set up all day, where PSA’s Acti-Leaders showed passers by how to winter sow the native seed packs they picked up from our booth, and what to do with them over winter, to ensure they successfully germinate in spring.

Again and again these Acti Leaders demonstrated techniques they learned in our workshops, and their confidence grew with every demonstration. It may have escaped many of you that one of these Acti Leaders was my son.

Last but not least, about a month ago, Remi submitted a video application to become a Junior Butterfly Ranger with the David Suzuki Foundation, after spending a year learning and helping with nearly each of the pollinator gardens we created, and showing up to ‘help’ at each of our events.

Her application spoke of wanting to help insects, and I don’t recall what else, and she anxiously checked our mailbox three times a day to see if she got a response. DSF were amazing, and though she is 12 years below the minimum age to become a ranger, they sent her a certificate of appreciation, along with the smallest size T-shirt they had.

She proudly wears this shirt at every opportunity, and has wholeheartedly embraced her ‘junior’ ranger duties, and was with us all day, helping wherever she could. My favourite moments were probably those where she began talking to other kids about becoming a junior ranger, and some of the things she did to make that happen.

Outside of our own booth, the spirit and energy of what we collectively started was beaming all around the event. Children fluttered happily everywhere, and people met, talked, and learned about each other.

Our Pollinate Aylmer’s very own Sarah helped families create what we lovingly call ‘bibit houses’ for solitary bees and other pollinators, which children proudly carried around the venue with them.

Seeds of Diversity’s Greta brought with her an incredible display of saved heirloom seed varieties, and helped drive home the value of seed saving to our community. All of the attending organizations helped hand out seeds, and spoke passionately about what they do, and how they interact in our community. People came, got seeds, and listened.

And then there was the Coupe De Soupe! First ever, low key, low-fi community soup tasting competition, all in support of our food bank. Simple rules, no meat, no dairy. Entries included some of Aylmer’s favourite eating spots, facing off against the Aylmer Food Bank. Tasters trickled in all day, and despite some mishaps, like blowing a fuse, losing our heating sources, losing the recipes that we intended to make readily available, the soups were all delicious and enjoyed by all. The winner, by a very large margin, was the coconut lentil soup created by the food bank itself.

It was an incredible day for those of us with pink armbands. We achieved everything we had hoped to achieve through our first official Canopée Localeaf event, and so much more. We celebrated with a much needed beer at our local brewery, and then went home, slept, and slept, and slept some more.

So what is next?

We obviously can’t leave Seedy Saturday as a one off, especially after sending so many local seeds out into our immediate world. So, we invite you to grow them. Grow them whatever way your grandmother, internet, or even our workshops showed you, with one extra ask.

Grow a few more than you need. 

Grow extras to share them forward. Nurture, take care of them, and bring them to our next event.

Seeding Sunday…

Details and location coming soon, but save the date. May 31st.

FB event: https://facebook.com/events/s/seedling-sunday/1621257379076027/

While you are waiting, grow some extra seedlings to share. Let’s continue sharing, and building community, from seed.

Localseeds Aylmer QC / SemencesLocales Aylmer QC

Brought to you by Canopée Localeaf, and Pollinate Aylmer, and any other local Aylmer organization who wants to keep growing

Let’s grow together.