“Bulgarian Seed” – traditions and new experiences

The National Festival “Bulgarian Seed” skilfully combines tradition and modernity in order to continue to be from the sprout to the peak – all Bulgarian!

The ninth edition of the National Festival “Bulgarian Seed” will take place on 29 and 30 April in Sevlievo. The festival hosts already established initiatives such as the “Farmers’ Market”, “No One Is Greater Than Bread”, children’s workshops, etc. This year the organisers are enriching the programme with a number of new experiences. The National Festival in Sevlievo provides connoisseurs of traditional flavours with an exceptional opportunity to plant in their gardens vegetables, fruits and cereals with quality proven over decades.

Special attention this year will be given to bees and their role for the future of our planet. The initiative “11,400 Times per Minute” (the number of wing beats a bee makes per minute of flight) will bring festival guests together for a conversation with master beekeepers. The discussion will provide an opportunity to share interesting facts about the process of honey production, about the fascinating life of bees and about the benefits of consuming bee honey – the only food that is completely assimilated by the human body.

In order to preserve and continue the cultivation of Bulgarian varieties, this year again the one-of-a-kind “Seed House” will open its doors, where visitors will be able to take free of charge Bulgarian variety seeds provided by the institutes of the Agricultural Academy, by the community centres in the villages of Sevlievo municipality and by producers from all over the country. The initiative, whose motto is “Bring, Share and Take”, enables the free exchange of traditional local varieties and every guest of the festival can join it by taking and/or leaving in the hive a small packet of seeds with information about them.

The National Festival “Bulgarian Seed” in Sevlievo provides connoisseurs of traditional flavours with an exceptional opportunity to plant in their gardens vegetables, fruits and cereals with quality proven over decades.

As a long-standing partner of the festival, the Agricultural Academy will offer for sale a special selection of seeds of resilient Bulgarian varieties, with the start of the campaign, called “Pay It Forward”, to be given personally by the President of the Academy, Prof. Martin Banov.

Seed boxes have been carefully selected by the Maritsa Vegetable Crops Research Institute – Plovdiv, the Institute of Plant Genetic Resources – Sadovo, the Institute of Roses and Essential Oil Crops – Kazanlak, and the Institute of Ornamental and Medicinal Plants – Sofia.

Some of the valuable packets will be provided as gifts from the Agricultural Academy to participants in the traditional festival raffle. The initiative is implemented with the support of First Investment Bank.

The organisers of the event will also provide thousands of seeds of established Bulgarian vegetable varieties such as: tomato “Rozova Magia” (Pink Magic), cucumber “Gergana”, pepper “Plovdivska Kapiya”, pumpkin variety “Plovdivska”, etc.

On Sunday, guests of Sevlievo will have the opportunity to see fruit tree grafting and will be able to take part in practical training in grafting. A special guest lecturer of the initiative will be Hristo Ivanov – the “Ashlaminator”. For 9 years now he has been organising and conducting training meetings at which he passes on invaluable knowledge about the improvement of trees, the overall care of the orchard and family life in the countryside. He will tell us when is the most suitable time for grafting, which tree is suitable as a rootstock, how to prepare a scion, how to take care of the grafts, etc.

The last festival day will conclude with events for the youngest visitors, who will be able to take part in a number of new nature-supporting activities: educational initiatives of “Green Balkans” and of the “Bulgarka” Nature Park, the workshop “Paper-Free Day”, etc.

On the second festival day, on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of the festival, “Gorata.BG” will distribute free of charge thousands of fruit and melliferous trees to all interested persons.

It is said that in his lifetime everyone should plant at least one tree. Let us do it now!