Seedy Sunday is two weeks away! Here’s some more information about what’s happening on the 3rd of February.

Venue: BHASVIC, 205 Dyke Rd, Hove, BN3 6EG. £3 entry, kids free!  10:30am-4pm

Who’s speaking at Seedy Sunday this year?

We have a mix of old and new faces in the Copper Café at BHASVIC covering some fascinating topics associated with plants and growing:

• Opening our speaker programme are local herbalists Alice Bettany and Jessie Martelhof. Learn about the medicinal values of numerous common weeds and cottage garden herbs that you will no doubt already be familiar with. They will be talking about the history of their use, how to safely identify, dry and make them into herbal preparations. Take home a few simple recipe ideas which you can make yourself as food, medicine or cosmetics
• The wonderful Kate Bradbury, author of The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, a story about Kate’s experience creating a wildlife garden in her Brighton backyard. Kate will discuss foodchains and habitat creation, especially in urban areas like Brighton
• Our local Gardeners’ Question Time, with a panel of experts ready to take your questions
• Adrian Ely from the University of Sussex, who spoke last year, is back again this year presenting the development of Bioleft, an open and collaborative system for seed innovation that has been developed by a group of organisations in Argentina.  Against a background of increasing patenting of seeds and genetic resources, Adrian outlines one of the responses that is emerging around the world: open source seed systems.
• Our closing speakers, Pesticide Action Network UK will be launching their campaign to address the use of pesticides used right here on our doorstep in Brighton and Hove. These pesticides are unnecessary and there are plenty of non-chemical alternatives. Lots of councils have already banned these harmful chemicals and it’s time that Brighton & Hove did the same. Nick Mole, Policy Officer, Josie Cohen, Head of Policy and Campaigns, PAN UK, will be joined by Steve Peters, the award-winning gardener at The Level to discuss the ways in which he has managed to maintain this very public, green space without pesticides for a number of years now. Come and find out more about the campaign to end the use of pesticides in Brighton & Hove and how you can get involved.

What’s going on in the Children’s area?

We have some fun and creative activities for children to enjoy with their parents or caregivers, such as pebble painting, making seed packets and ‘seedy’ bookmarks. There will also be facepainting, and the chance to learn about and make Ecobricks, the new craze to hit Brighton! This brilliant idea involves packing non-recyclable plastic waste into plastic bottles including bags, labels, cling film, tape, sweet wrappers, yoghurt pots, etc. When it is cut small and packed tight it becomes weighty and can then be used to build small home and garden constructions with.

Be inspired for the gardening year at Seedy Sunday!