Tomatoes and peppers have already been started as bedding plants for Louise Jacobs’ large vegetable patch.
The British Columbia Women’s Institute member grows a lot in her 1,500 sq. foot garden, which is about the size of a house.
Besides the tender Mediterranean vegetables, she puts in onions, potatoes, lettuce, all the cabbage family except cauliflower (“can’t grow it”) and fruit such as strawberries, rhubarb and raspberries.
She finds growing fresh vegetables is not only a tradition for her older generation, but also reduces the grocery and transportation bills.
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Jacobs is challenging her fellow WI members to count their garden patches and add the sizes up. She wants to make a point about how many acres are put into vegetables by B.C. women for domestic plots compared to commercial market gardens.
“I want to see how productive a back yard can be. Most of our neighbours have them.”
Jacobs and her husband live on five acres in an area halfway between the interior B.C. towns of Smithers and Houston. It is a zone 2 area with 60 days of growing season.
Like a typical Canadian, she plants on the Victoria Day weekend. But she knows that’s no guarantee of success since she recalled one July 4 when frost “turned the potato plants to mush.”
The garden count challenge measures should be compiled by each branch and sent to the Quick WI whose secretary can be reached at 250-847-1921.
