Seeds of Friendship

Today I was in the vegetable garden weeding the row of raspberries. New canes emerged an inch or two up through the soil. This is their second year, so we should get a good crop. These first few days of garden work remind me of last spring when our garden was begun…

Spring 2007

As many times as I have moved during my lifetime, I never really considered a place “Home” until I had dirtied my hands in the soil. Perhaps this need to claim the land comes from some ancestral memory of rugged farmers always looking for better land just beyond the next hill, where they could plow the sod under, and plant the seeds for harvest. When we arrived here in 2006, it was too late to put in a garden… claiming my land had to wait for the next spring. Gardening is more than laying claim though. It is sending out runners, like the wild strawberries that grow in our meadow.

We have no garden tiller, and live far from any rental supply store. The idea of turning over the garden by hand was never a serious option. Just down the road is Woodcock Farm with all the attendant farm equipment. We made arrangements for Danny Stephens to till our garden space for us. Late in May he came with their old Ford tractor and tilled the soil. His wife came along, then Danny’s brother showed up on a motorcycle, and we all stood around talking about what to plant, and the fact that we needed an electric fence around the garden because it wasn’t a matter of “if” the roaming cows from the farm would show up, but a matter of “when.” We were convinced. From that day, Danny has made a point of stopping by to let us know of any important information, like the fact that the road was becoming flooded near Kitwanga and if we needed to get supplies, we had better go in right away. The kind of thing that neighbors do for one another.

Constructing the electric fence led to other community connections. After going into Terrace and finding no store that handled solar-powered electric fence supplies, Bob and I drove to Smithers towing our utility-trailer. At Smither’s Feed Store Bob found everything he needed, plus a clerk who didn’t mind spending a rainy Saturday afternoon advising and helping put together all the necessary fence posts, wire, solar-panel, insulators etc. Then he said, “Hey, since you live in Kitwanga, you must know Verne Bedwell at Fairhaven Farm.” Bob said, “No, I don’t know Verne, but I know Fairhaven Farm. It’s on our backroad.” “You should go talk to him,” the clerk continued, “They had to put up electric fences to keep out grizzlies.” Grizzlies love what the Bedwells grow – carrots! Along with the fence supplies, the Smither’s Feed Store had all sorts of things I needed for the garden and could not find anywhere else, so this is a place we will be going back to many times. Also in Smithers we were introduced to Glacier Nursery, where the owner’s wife and grandson went back and forth in the heavy rain to load two apple trees, and twenty bags of steer manure into our trailer, with smiles and laughter. It is also a place we will go back to.

Bob did go to Fairhaven Farm for advice, and the Bedwell Family stopped by here several days later to take a look at the garden and fence. The next day we were at their farm, watching them plant cabbages. Two days later we helped them to move things to higher ground because of the rampaging Skeena River. These are the seeds of friendship.

In the past, my gardens have featured what are known as Pass-Along plants, those starts that friends and family give to each other. I could always point them out and say, “That is the fuchsia started by my mother; those are Clintena’s anemones, Agnes’s iris.” In my cabin garden I now have tomato plants given to me by Cheryl Glover, and three kinds of cabbage plants from the Bedwells. It is a friendship garden, and because of it, our connection to this community has grown.

... P. L. Morningstar