With spring in the air, local green thumbs were ready to learn during the 19th annual Gardener’s Day.
The Bonnyville Ag Society partnered with Lakeland Agricultural Research Association (LARA) to host the event on Saturday, April 13 at the Bonnyville Senior’s Drop-In Centre.
”We’ve always had great turnouts and great speakers,” noted Alyssa Krone, manager of LARA. “It’s kind of everything gardening. We try to pick new things every year, but we also bring back some of the older topics that you need a refresher on.”
Dorris Cory brought along her daughter and granddaughter because of all of them enjoy gardening.
”We all are doing various, simple things in our garden, and for the fellowship as well. There’s a lot of people I know, and I was interested in all the topics that were being presented.”
Krone believes the day offered people the chance to gain knowledge from the presentations, as well as each other.
”You’re always going to learn something new from somebody else, even if it’s just a peer-to-peer conversation,” she expressed.
This year, attendees got a crash course in tree health management, pruning 101, the importance of soil health, and how to successfully ferment at home.Joan Engler, owner of E-Tree Farm located outside of Cold Lake, shared important tips when it comes to pruning.
”The three cardinal rules are to take out anything dead, to take out anything diseased, and to take out any crossing branches,” she said, adding another one that she lives by is not being too enthusiastic, and to not take more than a third of your branches out in a season.
Engler stressed the location of your plants is important to consider.
”When you’re buying your plants, always buy the right plant for the right location... The right location saves you hours and hours of pruning.”
She also reminded the audience of the importance of using safety tools, such as leather gloves and safety glasses, and how they can prevent serious injuries.
”I was out pruning some plants, and I went over to some spruce to do some work and scratched my retina. It was painful. (My doctor) said I was very fortunate to not lose my eye,” she recalled.
During her presentation, Dr. Yamily Zavala, soil health and crop management specialist with Chinook Applied Research Association, outlined the significance of healthy soil and how it impacts gardening.
”Soil health isn’t only good for the soil, it’s good for us,” she detailed.
According to Zavala, noticing the changes and checking them can assist in improving soil health.
”When we start knowing changes, we need to measure it because if we don’t measure the changes in soil we’ll never know that we’re going in the right direction. That’s why it’s important, and you that have gardens that would be good to know how good you’re improving your soil through that management that you’re doing there.”
Cory appreciated what she learned from the presentations.
”We’ve been trying to do various things in our gardens to fix them up, so it was a very good day.”
While she was among the guest speakers for the event, Sarah Campbell, a registered dietitian, nutritionist, and owner of ByDesign Nutrition and Health, enjoys Gardener’s Day because of the other speakers.
”I learn a lot, and I’m establishing a connection of where your food comes really matters. What we do with it after, how we process it after that, can also change the nutrient availability to us,” she said.
Campbell discussed how people can successfully ferment at home, what benefits it has to offer, and how to do it properly.
”For some people, they don’t like sour things, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still be having fermented food. It gives them the option to choose what vegetables or fruits, what kind of combinations they want to ferment that’s appealing to them,” she explained.
Once the event wrapped up, a survey had attendees anticipating what could be covered next year.
Krone said, “Sometimes they’ll name a speaker specifically, and we’ll do our best to try and cover that topic because we want to be relevant to people that are going to be attending in the area.”
