Tag: Indigenous seeds

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Our Fifth Growing Season Draws to a Close 🎉

Although Ratinenhayénthos was formed in 2018 and a garlic crop was planted on the site at 1462 York Rd that fall, 2019 was the first full growing season for seed crops on this very special site.  This means that the 2024 growing season was the fifth full season of seed keeping for the Kenhté:ke Seed Sanctuary and Learning Centre!  Since then so many of you have supported our growth as an organization, in so many ways, and we are grateful.  The Future Generations Fund, in particular, helped out a lot this year! May this organization continue to be as beneficial as a bean seed planted in good soil:  bearing an abundance of fruit many times greater than the one seed that was planted.

Many milestones were reached this year:  not one or two but five young people worked onsite as learners on the land, 50 crop varieties were planted, maintained and harvested, new areas were made ready for cultivation for the future and a greenhouse was finally erected!  A driveway now makes the site much more accessible, and two hoophouses were donated, one of which was actually put up -with a LOT of help!  We buried fish guts, burned future planting sites and covered others, and with borrowed equipment, one of our interns bravely tilled up a whole acre for a much larger 3 Sisters planting planned for next year.  We learned Seed Songs, cleaned seeds and heard bean stories with Elders, and feasted on produce from the gardens, generously prepared by amazing chef Caitlin Noel-Drews.  As we clean and count the seeds we tell their stories -their trials and tribulations, and their successes -and get ready to package some for sharing just after mid-winter.

We close 2024 with thanks, and greet 2025 wishing many blessings to all our relations: including you! <3

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Share the Love (of Plants and their seeds)!

We are very fortunate that love is so embedded in what we do at the Kenhte:ke Seed Sanctuary and Learning Centre!  Love for the seeds as we watch them grow from tiny sprouts to mature plants and back to seeds again, love for the volunteers who help out, love for the land and all its beings past present and future, and love for this community who persist in keeping seeds and feeding each other good food.  We are gearing up for a full year of sharing this love with you at many events!

First up of our events will be our annual Seed Share event, when community members will be able to choose seeds from our posted list for pick-up in mid-late March.  Watch for the list to be posted in early March, and grow locally-adapted heirloom and Indigenous plants in your garden this year!  We will also be participating in Kingston Seedy Saturday with our sister organization KASSI, on Saturday March 9 at Cooke’s Portsmouth United Church in Kingston.

We are hoping to be involved in a celebration of the full Solar Eclipse on April 8, stay tuned for announcements!  Definitely Look for us at the Earth Day event and join us in celebrating the fourth anniversary of the making of a modern Wampum belt and our commitment to the seeds in our care.  The seeds were Rematriated in ceremony on April 22, 2019.

We will be bringing on more youth (age 29 or under) interns this year, so if you, or a youth you know, are interested in learning to save and grow seeds please reach out to us.  Our mission is to cultivate a sacred space to grow, preserve, and protect heirloom and Indigenous seeds in accordance with Rotinonhsyon:ni cosmology, to ensure the availability of healthy, viable seeds for our collective future generations.

Volunteer workbees will continue this year on the second Sunday of each month beginning in April.  On Sunday, April 14 at 10 am, we hope you can join us by the fire to work together to clear brush and other tasks.  As usual, please dress for the weather and bring a water bottle.  Youth under 30 are particularly encouraged to come out, and we are happy to sign off on High School volunteer hours for helpers who need those!

Sending love out today and all year round!