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Crawford Bay's Dirty Beds Produce continuing East Shore agricultural tradition

Jessie King and Elisa Rose started Dirty Beds this summer, offering a massive selection of fresh veggies on Kootenay Lake's East Shore...
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Jessie King

There's nothing quite like the flavour of freshly harvested vegetables — and if you've grown them yourself, taking a bite might even bring a tear to your eye.

"The other night I had a meal that almost made me cry," said Jessie King, co-owner of Crawford Bay's Dirty Beds Produce. "It was so infinitely delicious."

Her dinner included a salad of her own tomatoes, garlic, basil and cucumbers, with some feta added, as well as grilled patty pan and crookneck squashes.

That's just a small sampling of what she and co-owner Elisa Rose grow, with peas, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, onions, rutabagas, herbs, kale, collards and brussels sprouts taking root this summer.

Rather than dealing with one large garden, their produce is grown in five beds in and around Crawford Bay.

"Part of it is because land is so expensive that young people can't afford it," said King, who added that setting up a garden isn't cheap, either; on this scale, extensive irrigations systems and many square meteres of weed-reducing black plastic are vital.

Their operation is reminiscent of SPIN (small plot intensive) gardening, with the notable difference that some of their gardening isn't that intense. SPIN gardens are usually devoted to produce with a high turnover rate, such as lettuce, whereas Dirty Beds grows things like squash, which require space and a longer growing season. It's well suited to one of their gardens, which uses concentric circles (with a few spirals) instead of rows, allowing for better companion planting and more space.

"Squash can ramble and take over — which it's doing quite well at," said King.

Although growing vegetables on this scale is new to King, gardening itself isn't — she grew up in Fernie and Salmon Arm, and had a small garden in her backyard as a teenager. But it was a solo cycling trip through the Slocan Valley six years ago that started her on the course that led to Dirty Beds.

"I thought, 'This place really resonates with me,' " said King, who was living in Victoria at the time.

She got a job as a teacher at Crawford Bay Elementary-Secondary School (CBESS), and after teaching for two years, took a two-year leave of absence, visiting Quebec and travelling across the country as a WWOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) volunteer. Last year, before returning to teach at CBESS, she did two farm apprenticeships.

"I got my hands more in the dirt than in books, and I loved it," she said.

She appreciates the opportunity to pass on her knowledge. One of the Dirty Beds gardens is located at CBESS, and the school buys some of its produce for its kitchen. And while King already teaches a wide ranges of subjects — last year's included literacy/numeracy for kindergarten-Grade 1, and Grade 11 social studies — she's adding some education involving about 200 pounds of tomatoes in the first semester.

"The kids will learn to make salsa and to can," she said. "They'll get some garden-to-plate experience in a small way."

And in February, she'll begin teaching a semester-long course in growing food to 17 students from inside and outside the region, in which they can earn high school credit.

This being King and Rose's first year in the gardening business, they're still absorbing all they can about it, networking with other farmers at the Nelson Downtown Local Market on Wednesdays, and making good use of other contacts.

"The farmers I've worked with in the past have been wonderful mentors," said King. "They're so excited that I've taken this on."

"We're not following any predetermined or learned structure of doing this; both of us have really been winging it from the start," said Rose. "We don't have a lot of gardening education, so we are learning as we go and making things up as we go along, so the process is very organic (just like the food)."

Customers on the East Shore are enjoying the produce they offer at the Crawford Bay Sunday Market — with things like carrots selling out within 10 minutes — as well as on the menus of Boccalino and Black Salt Café.

"We also offer, I hope, the idea that sustainability within this very special community is possible, and it can, is and will continue to happen when people get together and contribute their different talents, strengths, creativity and hard work towards a common goal, for the good of the whole," said Rose.

By growing fresh produce, Dirty Beds is continuing an East Shore tradition — the area used to be dotted with orchards, and in the 1990s, a resident offered weekly vegetable boxes through a community supported agriculture program — and that might just encourage others to grow their own food.

"I have this really strong passion for social and environmental justice, and I feel like more of us as a society need to get our hands in the dirt," said King.

For more information, visit Dirty Beds Produce on Facebook.