Frequently Asked Questions
About In-Person Events
In-Person Events – The Great American Seed Up
The in-person Great American Seed Up events are our original idea bringing bulk seed and seed saving education to our local community. We plan in-person events for Phoenix in Late October or Early November each year. Below are some of the frequently asked questions and the answers that can help explain our original program.
Here’s how it works
- Register for your choice of days
- Attend the event, scoop your seeds, experience the amazing energy!!!
- Check out our Seed Education Portal with access to previous presentations.
- Join us for our Seed Up Saturday Online events for presentations and Live Q&A.
Imagine walking into a room filled with over 100 varieties of climate appropriate seeds ready to literally be scooped up and taken home for planting or saving. This is exactly what the Great American Seed Up is all about. “The idea is to give valley residents an opportunity to learn about seed saving and then harvest as many ounces of seed they wish to take home,” says Farmer Greg Peterson, Urban Farm Founder and local seed saver. We are partnering with the Uptown Phoenix Farmers Market. The event features a seed bazaar with bulk quantities of popular vegetable seed varieties available for purchase at bulk discounts.
Attendees are encouraged to buy and share the seeds with their neighborhood and community groups to spur local gardening and seed saving efforts. “We’re trying to get seeds in the hands of the people,” says Seed Up co-organizer Bill McDorman of Seedsave.org. “The more seed diversity we have growing in our neighborhood gardens and backyard plots, the more resilient we’ll be as a community. These seeds are the best varieties we can find in bulk to help you start your seed saving adventure.”
Included with pre-registration for the Seed Up will be access to several online presentations with seed and gardening experts to spread knowledge about traditional and modern seed saving practices.
Here are the most frequently asked questions:
One person per registration ticket. Children under the age of 15 are free.
A typical visit to the seed room is about 30 to 60 minutes depending on how many seeds you are collecting. Check-out lines move fairly quickly as we have several team members helping and keeping the fun atmosphere going! Many participants enjoy spending several hours at the Seed Up to scoop seeds and visit with other like minded folks. Saturday Morning is also a great day to shop at the local Farmers Market in the parking lot. It is one of the best ones in town.
Most of our seeds are the same as last year, however we try to add new seeds when we can. We evaluate and make our shopping list each year based on what is available from our growers. We take great consideration while selecting new seeds and are excited to offer new varieties, including grains and cover crops! A proposed seed list will be made available in the last week or two before the event with the most up-to-date information, and can be found on our home page to download.
All seeds are untreated and open pollinated making them excellent for saving and even for an organic program if you are planning on selling food grown from the seeds. Furthermore, if you grow them organically (which we hope you do) and save them (which we hope you do), they now become organic! The certified organic seed program is complicated and has become overwhelming for many seed farmers. If we limited our supply to organic seeds at this point, we would find it impossible to source the diversity necessary to build our own resilient seed supply.
No. We will have a check-in table for those who registered online. Priority entry will be given to those who have already registered. This year registration is free, but you must register.
Yes. The walk-in fee is $7.50. Only those who pre-register will receive the free online versions of the seed classes.
Yes. Bill McDorman will present Friday evening, “Who Owns Our Seeds”.
You can join us in our monthly Seed Chats, or in our Seed Up Saturday for a bounty of education.
To register online: we accept PayPal and all major credit cards.
At the event: we accept cash, and all the major credit cards.
Absolutely! We have some of the best volunteers in town! We will have varied levels of experts from hopeful gardeners up to Master Gardeners, all on hand to help answer your seed and gardening questions.
Parking is best in the South parking lots, and there should be plenty of room in the West parking lot too. If you are there on Saturday, the North and West parking lots will also contain the Uptown Farmers Market and its participants.
Yes, we love to see kids at the Seed Up and encourage the seed shopping experience for future gardeners, however we do ask that you be vigilant while watching your younger children. Our seeds need to stay separated, and little hands can accidentally mix up seeds quite easily. We do not have child care or space for children to run in the seed room. Fortunately, in the Farmers Market itself there are spaces for kids to express their energy. – More info about kids at the Seed Up HERE.
We encourage participants to eat before or after their Seed Up experience to keep our seeds free from contamination.
A capped water bottle is fine inside the seed room but please take extra care not to get any seeds or surfaces wet. On Saturday until 1 pm, you may purchase food at the Farmer’s Market taking place just outside our event.
Yes, we do accept volunteers to our in-person seed up team. Please send an email to Ray@UrbanFarm.org to express your interest.
If you have any other questions, please email them to Janis@GreatAmericanSeedUp.org. Thank you!