Thinking about starting your own garden in Jasper because you want to avoid buying into the global food industry? You’re going to need help. The Jasper Municipal Library is organizing a series of information sessions about growing and eating locally around Jasper that just might do the trick.

Janeen Keelan, an events co-ordinator at the Jasper Municipal Library who is spearheading the information sessions, said that she recognizes that only eating food produced within a 100 mile radius around Jasper won’t be easy.

When she raised the idea several weeks ago with some other Jasperites, the immediate response was “There’s no farms around here for 100 miles,” she said. How can you eat local when it seems so hard to grow locally, people asked.

“When I put a tentative word out that we were looking to host sessions on community gardening and local eating, I was met with a storm of e-mails, phone calls and impromptu street-level meetings. People really care about this stuff,” Keelan stated in an email. Eating local might be difficult here, but that’s no reason people can’t learn about it, she believes.

There will be three information sessions on eating local, all organized through the Jasper Municipal Library.

On Tuesday, March 16 at 6 p.m., local green thumb Charlie Finley will host a general information session on growing food in Jasper.

On Thursday, March 18 at 6:30 p.m. the Three Valley Growers and Producers Co-operative will give a presentation on building a sustainable, local food system.

Then, on Tuesday, March 23 at 6 p.m., there will be a general presentation by various people from Jasper who are interested in community gardening initiatives. If you’re interested in coming out and voicing your opinion or organizing with other people, the third meeting is probably best.

Each meeting is free and will be held at the Jasper Municipal Library.

“It’s nutrition week and I was putting together a display and the idea just sort of came to me,” she said when asked how the meetings came together. She said that if people are growing their own vegetables and fruits, they’ll be more likely to eat healthy.

Also, the recent difficulties with launching a community greenhouse in Jasper and the tentative, continuing efforts in Hinton also spurned Keelan into thinking that people may need to take matters into their own hands, or in this case, their own gardens.

One of the speakers during the meetings will be Charlie Finley, a longtime resident of Jasper who has a history of growing his own veggies and fruits.
“You can grow just about anything you want here,” said Finley, although more exotic fare like avocados or kiwis might be tricky. “The Indians did just fine growing it out in the bush.”

Overall, there’s no real science to having a garden in Jasper, said Finley.

“You put the seed in the ground, feed them [manure] and water and watch it grow,” he said.

Still, Finley said that growing in Jasper does require some careful considerations of climate and soil.

The growing season in a mountainous location like Jasper is significantly reduced when compared to your more traditional farming environment. Frosts are frequent, snow can happen in June and the growing season is short.

Finley says that the ladies who live near him and taught him almost everything he knows about gardening always said: start moving your tomatoes from an inside start-up garden to an outside plot on the first full moon of May. Mid to late May is when the gardening season really begins to pick up speed and, although it’s not a hard and fast rule, the first full moon is typically the time to start.

Finley said because growing days are limited, make sure that you’re using those long days of the spring and summer to their fullest.

Soil is the other primary concern for growing in Jasper. Much of the dirt and soil here has been scraped away by glaciers over the past millennia, said Finley, and finding suitable spots to grow your food requires some craftiness.

“You have to make your own soil, build it up,” said Finley. “Nothing leaves my yard. Everything just goes back into the garden.”

Beyond composting, Finley said that if you take the ground out from underneath a deciduous tree, you’ll find that it’s fertile and excellent for gardening. All of the dead leaves, bark and roots that have collected underneath the tree have built up to create a biomass that can grow things more readily. Scoop some of the dirt out — don’t get greedy — and add it to your garden, said Finley.

Beyond that, Finley recommends building a seven foot post and wire fence around your garden or yard to keep out elk. If you have kids, prepare to be frustrated because they’ll probably get into the garden at some point and will do some damage, he said.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly of all, Finley said gardening is hard work. A lot of people think the idea of gardening is just so great until they figure out that it’s hard, frustrating and a lot of work, said Finley.

But if you do it right, spend the time and get a little lucky, you might reap some delicious results. When asked why someone would go through all the hard work of gardening in Jasper, Finley said, “If you could taste one of my tomatoes, then you wouldn’t even be asking me that question.”