“If you’re going to grow good plants, healthy plants, then you need the best possible soil that you can get.”
Those are the words of Elaine Komolmeitz, who, along with fellow Cochrane Agricultural Society member Valerie Chapleau, conducts “Grow Right, Eat Right” gardening workshops throughout the year for children and adults. Between them, the two women have about 100 years of gardening experience
My Cochrane Now Dot Com dropped in this past Saturday at the public library, when the major topic was soil.
Chapleau says the workshops also feature planting at the library, then replanting at the community garden near the curling club.
“We try to make it a sharing garden,” she remarks. “You plant, I plant. If you want a few of those, you take them. If I want a bit of that (you barter back and forth), yes.”
Chapleau says that last year, 150 elementary students participated in a “one potato, two potato” program at the community garden near the curling rink.
“The children of the schools come up there and plant potatoes and then they come in the fall and harvest the potatoes – which is a lot of fun – and they share them,” Chapleau explains. “ They give one for themselves and one to the food bank.”
Workshops are at the public library every other Saturday until they move outdoors to the community garden.