Seedy Saturday brings people together to swap locally saved seeds, find out about community projects, and join in workshops and talks. There will be carefully selected stalls offering an extensive range of usual and unusual seeds and plants, seed potatoes, shallots, reconditioned garden tools, plant supports, and hand crafted bird boxes. Peter May will once again be demonstrating how to care for and sharpen garden tools (bring your secateurs to have a go). Christiane Gunzi will be running her willow plant support making workshop, prebooking essential with Christiane. There will be children’s seed planting activities, music, and warming soup, teas, coffee and cake. Please bring cash, this is a cash event.

This years talks (no booking required, but seating is limited to 80 persons):

10.30am “A wilder Way to Grow Vegetables” Suzi Turner and Rosanna Catterall.

Suzi Turner, deputy head gardener at Knepp, will talk about growing vegetables and flowers in the walled garden redesigned in 2019 in keeping with Knepp's pioneering rewilding project: “We’ve taken what we’ve learnt from the wider rewilding project to spark a new way of thinking about how a garden can function as a dynamic ecosystem”. Rosanna Catterall helped transform a 3 acre paddock at Knepp into a productive, organic market garden. She will focus on growing seasonal veg for diversity and flavour and the merits and challenges of no dig and low till growing.  “We’re always aiming to have living roots in the soil, keeping the surface covered with a wide range of plants to help build topsoil and protect it from the drying sun, wind, and excessive rain”. Both growers will dig into how to grow productively alongside often competing demands for productivity, aesthetics, and biodiversity.

12.30pm “The Good Life” What happens when you turn your passion for growing organically into your day job?  Collete Pavledis

Ashurst Organics has been growing organically and delivering veg locally for over 30 years.  Battling the weather, slugs, weeds and ‘The Market’ - the talk will be a verbal Bayeux tapestry of what it is to be ‘Living the Dream’ which can too often feel like a nightmare.  Collette’s talk, titled “The Good Life”, with reference to the BBC’s 1975 sitcom, will weave her own personal life choices into the bigger picture and the battle for the global food system. Collette will be recounting the “joys and woes of trying to make a living from agroecological farming, whilst trying to save the Planet – one turnip at a time”. What now for Ashurst?  And where now for the future of food in an increasingly volatile world?

Saving seeds for Seedy Saturday Lewes 2025? please ensure they are packaged in small amounts and clearly labelled with the type or variety and collection date.

Thank you to Lewes Town Council for their grant support