A Little Piece of Heaven in the Wild
We discovered a little piece of heaven five years ago in the east end of the Pemberton Valley. This private yet easily accessible acreage caught our attention on a sunny day in April. We found ourselves on a path that led us through an overgrown field into a grove of cedar trees and wild cherry, apple and hazelnut trees. The size of the cedars stunned us but it was the height of the wild cherry trees that enchanted us. Black, burgundy, pink and red are their fruits’ colours. We soon discovered that this meandering trail offered an equally surprising variety of wild berries. Raspberries along with salmon, saskatoon and thimble berries hung heavily within easy reach when we walked by in the summer months. We discovered other wild-crafted plants throughout the property on further explorations. These herbs made it into our teas, soups and salads.
We decided to add to nature’s bounty by cultivating gardens, building sun-filled greenhouses and planting an orchard of apple, cherry and plum trees. On summer days and during the fall, I strolled through the orchard to pick blueberries, strawberries, black currants, gooseberries and raspberries to add to my morning smoothies. Friends who came by to visit always went home with a goodie bag of orchard pickings. A friend attended Christmas dinner and shared a berry pie made with the bumper crop that had landed in her freezer that summer.
The gardens produced a grand assortment of vegetables — if you saw it at a local farmer’s market its likely that we grew it here as well. Over the last five summers the garden area grew from 8000 square feet to 20000 square feet. Its fencing protects it from visits by unwanted animals. And an additional 16000 square feet has been cleared to prepare for future growth. This first acre of field includes space for the bee hives and chicken coup. A second acre of land accounts for the driveway and off-grid chalet, lawn areas, parking spots and the orchard. The rest of the 7.65 acres of land are ripe with potential.
The greenhouses were built to extend the growing season. As the sun warmed up the soil in the spring, we planted cold-hardy salad greens and spinach in the greenhouses to jump start the outdoor crops. Throughout the summer we grew tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, cucumbers and eggplants along with their companion plants like basil inside the greenhouses. In autumn, as the weather got colder, we sowed winter greens that could go dormant until waking up again in the spring and maturing earlier than if outdoors in the new year. One of the three unheated field greenhouses kept our salads fresh in the coldest months of the year. A fourth, the seedling greenhouse, acted like an outdoor winter living room until the wood stove heating it up served a more practical purpose by keeping warm the spring-planted seed trays.
We could have not have imagined how our pioneering efforts would so greatly prepare us for the unimaginable global changes of 2020. We had simply thrown caution to the wind when our teenage children left the nest to secure their own futures. We downsized from a four-bedroom home to a studio cabin; left behind the amenities of on-demand electricity to rely on a solar-powered energy system; and exchanged well-known neighbours for clucking hens. We reached the end of our five-year challenge successfully, ready to pass the baton onto the next thrill-seeking homesteaders.
