Calder Food Hub – March Update

Following the success of last year’s event, Calder Food Hub held its third ‘Seedy Saturday’ plant and seed exchange at the Hope Baptist Church in Hebden Bridge on Saturday 24th March. Admission was free. A Calder Food Hub soup, cakes and refreshments were served by Hope Baptist Church and were available throughout the event. There were also craft activities and games for children.

About 150 people throughout the day bought unwanted seeds and plants to swap. Seeds are expensive to buy, and Seedy Saturday gave people the opportunity to try new varieties without spending a fortune. The afternoon was a vibrant mix of seed and plant swapping, advice on seed saving, video projections from ‘Seed Savers’ and Vandana Shiva, highlighting the global importance of local seed varieties and the groups who have contributed to the protection of seed sovereignty.

We also launched the Calder Food Hub ‘Tool Library’ and promoted a course ‘Bark Grafting of Fruit Trees’ that we are running in the spring. Our tool library is based at the Redacre Growing Project in Mytholmroyd and consists of a range of standard and specialist gardening tools that are available for local groups and individuals to borrow.

The Hub also hope to encourage new people to get involved in the community allotment at Redacre and are actively looking for new committee members, who are interested in improving access to local food in this area.