AGRICULTURE: Valley Food News
By Patti Bevilacqua
Community Garden set to grow
The Kettle Valley Community Garden is continuing its progress towards completion. The fence is up, the automatic irrigation system is in and operational, the raised garden beds are built and on site. The beds will be filled “lasagna style” – layering soil with compostable material. They have arranged with the City for a constant water supply and will experiment with year round growing in the giant hoop house – a large greenhouse. The hope is to grow cool crops like lettuce and kale throughout the year, and with the relatively mild winters we think this is possible. Many people and businesses have contributed to the Kettle River Community Garden with time, machinery, expertise, and/or money. The group would like to thank the following for their generous support: The City of Grand Forks, Boundary Mapping, Knopp Contracting, Home Building Centre, Emcon, Bron & Sons Nursery, Granby Gravel & Sand, Morrisey Creek Building Supplies, Ron’s Irrigation, Tool Time, Y&R Water, Centre Road Farms, Eugene Greybe, Mihaela Yeung, and a big thank you to Doug Zorn, President of the Grand Forks & Boundary Regional Agricultural Society (GFBRAS). For more information regarding the garden, please contact David at 250-442-0196 or Lorraine at 250-442-0962. Lastly, the Kettle River Community Garden will also be known as Hanneke’s Place – a memorial to Hanneke Bluthenthal who recently moved on from our world. Hanneke designed the plan for the garden and contributed much time and knowledge to the project. In lieu of flowers Ralph Bluthenthal, Hanneke’s husband, requested donations be made to the community garden. Please send donations to GFBRAS, 10590 Granby Road, Grand Forks, V0H 1H1. Thank you to people who made a donation already. Lawn mower challenge at Grand Forks Fall Fair Lawn mower races are open to everyone with consideration to age and modifications. Again, the one and only John Zibin will be announcing. Invitations have been sent to racers in Castlegar and Rock Creek. Come out and join the fun on Saturday, Aug. 28 – registration begins at 2:00 p.m. and races start at 3:00 at the same location as last year, next to the Grand Forks Curling Rink. Dust will once again be controlled. GFBRAS wish to thank our many sponsors and partners – Regional District of Kootenay Boundary, Lordco, The Source, John Zibin, First Aid Attendants, track helpers, Kootenay Car Care, Ambulance crew, City of Grand Forks and the Grand Forks Fall Fair for enabling us to put this event on. GFBRAS supports the Grand Forks Fall Fair and the Rock Creek and Boundary Fall Fair as a way to promote the region’s farmers, striving towards this region being a prosperous Agricultural Hub once again. Meat draw winners The July Meat Draw winners are: Scrummer Dunning (Sidwell Farms beef) and Bob & Linda Southwick form Christina Lake who won a large, loaded pizza from West End Store in Grand Forks and a batch of home-made cookies from Cookies by Karin. GFBRAS would like to thank all people who supported the first two draws. There is no meat draw in August — we’ve noted all of the good suggestions to make the draw more successful. Changes to the Meat Draw will be discussed at our next Society meeting on Tuesday, August 24 at 7:00 pm at the RDKB meeting room. Upcoming meeting dates Kettle Valley Food Co-op Annual General Meeting Saturday, September 11 3-5 pm at the GF Wildlife Hall/Pavilion Potluck dinner to follow Grand Forks & Boundary Regional Agricultural Society Monthly Meeting Tuesday, August 24 RDKB Meeting Room Directors – 6:30 pm General Meeting – 7:00 pm
