A core of enthusiastic members of the community met for a sustainable farming forum, seed cleaning, seed bank meeting and potluck at the West Sound Community Center on March 1.

The meeting consisted of CSA farmers, community members, seed bank members and contributers, seed bank organizer Allan Rosato, restaurant owners, young community members, home gardeners, neophyte gardeners, and elders. The perspectives were diverse but the effort was light and energetic.

CSA farmer Rhonda Barbieri of the Campesina project on Orcas brought a bounty of many of her last season’s surplus to share with the Seed Bank. She came well prepared with blankets to sort/extract seeds from the chafe and a set of historic screens for winnowing chafe that were donated to her by an elder farmer that once lived on Orcas. FEAST donated kale and other seeds.

The group worked together in informal groups, using historical hand means, collecting seed from varieties of lettuce, kale seeds, broccoli Raab, various hard winter squashes, peppers, sun flowers, and locally grown flax.

Restaurant owner Charles Dalton of The Kitchen and Phil Keikkinen of the the library vigorously shared the task of shaking the chafe from the seed pods and collecting seed at one of the work stations. There were groups of people on the floor, and at table stations. The ages ranged from 18 to 70 years old and the work was accompanied by spirited conversation and information networks in an informal basis.

The Orcas Seed bank has been in existence since spring of 2008, and has a new home with donated space from the Odd Fellows.

To learn more about the Sustainable Farming Forums or to become a member of or contributor to the Orcas Seed Bank, contact Allan Rosato 376-2158.

To connect with CSA farmers, all are invited to the next meeting the last week of March.