Earth friendly gardening in the Kootenays region of British Columbia, Canada

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3rd  Annual Kaslo Garden Festival

 9 am - 3 pm  Monday May 24, 2010
Kaslo Front Street Park

    Come and visit vendors sharing their information, selling a great array of plants plus veggie starts and talented artists with art for your garden.

    This annual garden festival continues to grow in popularity, taking place on the Monday of the Kaslo May Days Festival which features 3 days of activities through out the village.

    Come check out the Garden Festival and stay for the parade, food vendors, craft vendors, live music and family style entertainment.

    More info? 250-353-7592 or jensibley@shaw.ca
 

 
 
    "On Science Blogs there's a lot of discussion about the importance of science education and preparing young people for careers in science. In the culture at large, there's a lot talk about the coming demographic shift in which we will need a lot more nurses, doctors and specialists in elder care.
    There is almost no discussion whatsoever of the even more pressing crisis in agriculture - the profound need to train young people to grow food. The assumption has been that technology and resources are infinite and the path to ever-fewer farmers and offshoring of agriculture will continue indefinitely."
 

Who Will Grow Your Food?

    Sharon Astyk writes about the coming demographic crisis in agriculture in the US. The same applies to Canada.

 
 

 

Is life without plastic possible?

Find out at: 

Dispatch from Germany: Visiting three farm-to-table enterprises

 
 

 

   Since birds can get sick from moldy bird seed, it is a good idea to keep bird food in your feeder always dry in the snowy or rainy weather. Usually the roof of the birdfeeder doesn't provide sufficient protection.
    I protect my birdfeeder from rain and snow with an additional little "roof", which I've made of cardboard covered with plastic and fixed above the roof of the birdfeeder. It works beautifully.
    Last year I had at least six different species of birds visiting my birdfeeder during winter. It is a great pleasure to watch those little sparks of life happily feeding on the organic sunflower seeds, crushed peanuts and cracked corn. It is difficult for them to find another food sources now, when everything is covered with a thick layer of snow.
   I feed them only during winter and do not overfeed them, so they have to look for the natural food sources as well. In summer they, in turn, will help me to keep my plants healthy by picking insects. During summer months most of smaller wild birds live almost entirely on insects and their larvae. They also feed their young on insect food.

 

 

Links of interest:

 

Birds of North America - What Bird

   Identify your bird by location, shape, size, habitat, colour, bill shape, bill length, wing shape or family.

 

 
    Beautiful pictures by William Zittrich illustrating the life cycle of Giant Swallowtail    and   Monarch   butterflies.
 
 
Gardeners to Gardeners
 

   Have you been thinking of building a pvc pipe hoop-house but did not know exactly how? A friendly gardener from the Creston Valley shares his expertise on this and other topics at Dan's Album

    Photo by Dan McMurray

 
 

    Many people have asked about my daylilies and recently the local newspaper ran a two page article on my garden which is now around 1000 different daylilies. About 135 are named varieties and the rest are seedlings or unnamed. I live in zone 3 and I do nothing to protect my plants other than leaving the foliage on for the winter. We have high winds and little snow cover as well as repeated freeze-thaw cycles so you know that these are VERY hardy plants. Please click on the link to my pages . I hope that you can find something you like.
- Sherry Kuystermans, Crowsnest Pass, S-W Alberta.

 


The Cranbrook Garden Club

hosts

14th Annual Open Garden Day
Sunday, July 11, 2010
9:30am - 3:30pm

More information coming soon
 

 

Did you know?

   Farmers have cross-bred between crops for a long time, but GE crops are different.
    First, they are produced and controlled by large corporations, which are largely unaccountable to the public.
    Second, they mix genes from non-plant species with crops – and, unlike cross-breeding by farmers, this science is new and unpredictable.
    Third, corporations can patent GE seeds, which damages traditional forms of seed sharing among farmers.
   The Society for a G.E. Free B.C. is a social justice coalition of groups and individuals across BC/Yukon working for local, community based agriculture, and against genetic engineering of plants and trees. GE Free BC envisions a food-sovereign Canada where no genetically engineered life forms are created, patented, approved, bought, sold or traded.
Learn more at: 
gefreebc.org
 

    More than 260 regions, over 4500 municipalities and other local entities and tens of thousands of farmers and food producers in Europe have declared themselves "GMO-free" expressing their commitment not to allow the use of genetically modified organisms in the agriculture and food in their territories.

Read more at:
European Conference on GMO-free Regions, Biodiversity & Rural Development
 
Kootenays GE Free Zones:
Nelson - 2008
Kaslo - 2009
Rossland - 2009
New Denver - 2009
 
 
 
What do you think, is it a good idea that one multinational corporation controls the majority of the food supply on the Planet?
 
 

    Producing and growing GE foods represents tampering with nature on an unprecedented scale.
    GE foods were first introduced in the early 1990s. During eight year period between 1997 and 2005 the land occupied by GE crops has increased 50 times from 4.2 million acres to 222 million acres.
    Lack of mandatory labeling of GE products not only prevents the consumer from making informed choice whether to consume genetically modified food but also makes it practically impossible to monitor the impact of such controversial food products on the health of the population.
    Now, a new genetically engineered crop, transgenic Bt Brinjal (Eggplant) is being promoted by Mahyco seed company in India. Brinjal is a traditional Indian vegetable. During 4000 years Indian farmers developed hundreds of Brinjal varieties. The introduction of Bt Brinjal could contaminate traditional varieties and endanger the Brinjal genetic diversity.

Learn  more about GE (GMO):
Pharmaceutical Food Crops in a Field Near You
Millions Against Monsanto Campaign
Wordpress GE Free BC
 
What you can do?

    Support your local farmers, buy local, buy organic, grow what you can yourself, save and share your seeds, buy seeds from seed companies and nurseries that sell heirloom and rare or endangered varieties, demand mandatory labeling of GE foods, join gefreebc.org .

 
Non-GMO Shopping Guide
 
 
 
    Is something interesting happening or going to happen in your garden or in other gardens in your area?  Would you like our visitors to know about that?
 
    Do you grow a heirloom or a native garden here in the Kootenays? I would like to hear from you!
 

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Garden Humor

Top Ten Signs You Have Gone Over the Garden Edge...

10. Your favorite poem is "Roses are Red, Violets are Blue".
9.   Your kids are named Rose, Violet, Daisy and Zucchini.
8.   You have 8 X 10 family pictures of your Tomatoes and Peppers on your office shelf.
7.   Your idea of Saturday Date Night is going out in the garden and hand pollinating the plants.
6.   You think a cocktail is liquid fertilizer.
5.   You rush home from work and go straight to the garden and hug your roses. (Ouch!) Then, you go in to your house and see you family.
4.   On Christmas Eve, visions of "Sugar Peas" dance in your head.
3.   After the first frost, you are seen holding funeral services in your garden.
2.  You take your kids multiple vitamins from them to use as a supplement to your plants fertilizer.
1.  Every Spring your family files a "Missing Person's" report. You remain missing all summer, and mysteriously re-appear in the fall.

 

Poetry Corner

 

The stripped and shapely
Maple grieves
The ghosts of her
Departed leaves.

The ground is hard,
As hard as stone.
The year is old,
The birds are flown.

And yet the world,
In its distress,
Displays a certain
Loveliness

-  John Updike  "A Child's Calendar"  

 

 

 

Kootenays location

 

    The Kootenays region of British Columbia, Canada, marked white

 
    The Kootenays region is located in the S-E triangle of British Columbia, Canada, in-between the two majestic mountain ranges: the Monashee Mountains in the West and the Rocky Mountains in the East.
    Cranbrook, Elkford, Fernie, Golden, Invermere, Kimberley, Sparwood and Radium Hot Springs are major cities/towns in the East Kootenay.  Castlegar, Creston, Greenwood, Grand Forks, Kaslo, Midway, Nakusp, Nelson, New Denver, Rossland, Salmo and Trail are major cities/towns in the West Kootenay (including Kootenay-Boundary).
    Because of its mountainous location, the region encompasses several gardening zones, from zone 6 in the South, close to big tables of water, to zone 1 in the high elevations.
    Gardening is one of the favourite activities in the Kootenays. There are many beautiful flower as well as vegetable gardens in the region.
    Each summer we have garden tours and garden festivals in the Beaver Valley, Castlegar, Cranbrook, Creston, Grand Forks, Kaslo, Kimberley, Nelson, Rossland, the Slocan Valley, the Slocan Lake area, Trail and Warfield.
    To support sustainability and help local farmers sell their products directly to consumers, outdoor markets become more and more popular. The largest outdoor community market in the Kootenays, Cottonwood Falls Outdoor Market is located in Nelson. There are also farmers markets operating during summer in  Creston, Fernie, Grand Forks, Invermere, New Denver, and Silverton.
 

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