Gardening in the South Cariboo isn’t the easiest pastime.
Due to our region’s high elevations and unpredictable weather, those with green thumbs are limited in what they can grow and when. These conditions often leave new residents of the area at a loss for what to do. That’s why next month the Interlakes CattleBelles are hosting the Ready Set Grow workshop at the Lone Butte Community Centre on Saturday, March 2.
“Beginner gardeners here in the Cariboo don’t know what they need to know,” Ginny-Lou Alexander, Interlakes Cattlebelle member, said. “We haven’t got all the answers but we want to help people get going with gardening. We want to help them be successful. I always say start out small and look over your fence at what your neighbour is doing or come talk to us old timers.”
Throughout the last four decades, the Interlakes CattleBelles have been a fixture of the Cariboo agricultural community. Alexander said one of their main goals has always been education, especially when it comes to helping people learn about agriculture. They believe that if you eat, you’re involved in agriculture, so the more you know the better.
In recent months Alexander said she and several other members of the CattleBelless have been asked more than once for gardening tips by people who’ve moved to the area from the Lower Mainland, the Okanagan or elsewhere. Their most common question is what grows best in the Southern Cariboo.
“I have been growing a garden in the South Cariboo since 1959 when we moved to Lone Butte of all places. It’s very high there and we found out that you can’t do much when it freezes, snows or hails every month of the year,” Alexander said. “I’ve learned to adapt. For 18 years I was on the east end of Horse Lake, which wasn’t much better, but through trial and error I’ve learned what grows, what grows well and what doesn’t grow so well.”
Alexander said her attitude has always been that what she can grow on the ground, she’ll grow including beets, turnips, carrots and potatoes. Everything else she’ll buy as for her building a greenhouse was too much hassle.
Sharing that experience at a workshop just made sense to Alexander and the other CattleBelles. With spring approaching in what has already been an unusually warm year they decided to give people a place to share their knowledge and learn from three keynote speakers.
They are longtime South Cariboo Farmers Market and Community Enhancement and Economic Development Society member Rob Diether, Horse Lake Garden Centre florist Elaine Gisbi and Big Rock Ranch operator and farmer Robin Hunt. All of them will touch upon different aspects of growing in the South Cariboo.
They also plan to have a few different booths set up in the community centre with information and seeds attendees can take home. In many ways, Alexander said this event will be a prelude to Seedy Saturday, typically held in April.
Tickets for the event are being sold for $25 each with proceeds going to pay for the hall rental and a lunch served by the CattleBelles.
To pre-register she said that people can either email interlakescattlebelles@gmail.com or contact her at 250-395-3555.
Their only limit on tickets is the capacity of the Lone Butte Community Centre, though Alexander doubts they’ll sell 125 tickets.
“We really want to get people helped out and start growing because we need to, looking at the price of food,” Alexander said. “We’d like to see everyone who wants to come, come.”
