There are plenty of green-thumbed residents in the county, which is why local backyard farmer Nancy Russell has taken it upon herself to organize a Boundary County Gardening Club. Russell, who grew up on a farm in the Midwest, hopes that the club will serve as a forum where all of these knowledgeable growers can get together in order to educate one another.

Russell has lived in Boundary County for the last ten years, but she has been a farmer all her life. As a young girl growing up on an 80-acre farm in Illinois with 10,000 laying chickens, most of her mornings were spent gathering eggs, but she learned plenty about growing crops during that time as well: the family also grew corn, wheat and beans, most of which was fed to the chickens.

Russell then went to school to become a nurse and, shortly thereafter, met her husband, who was in the Air Force. In the time since, Russell has lived and gardened all over the country: “East Coast, West Coast...wherever I went I had a garden.”

Russell, who retired three years ago, says that she tries to use organic gardening methods as much as possible, perhaps because that’s the only way she was taught.

“When I grew up, it was organic before it was even called organic,” she says. “The chicken manure went out in the fields … dad never used fertilizers because we had it right there. And they went out in the bean fields and hoed the weeds, they didn’t use pesticides.”

Russell is also proud to say that the farming gene has made it on to the next generation: her son lives in Seattle where he and his wife are currently experimenting with urban chicken farming.

As far as the Boundary County Gardening Club (BCGC) is concerned, Russell says that her primary goal for the club is for it to be educational: “What I’m looking at is something for your everyday backyard grower...we’re gonna gear more toward the regular homeowner that has a backyard, whether it has two feet of space or ten acres.”

Her hope is that the club can serve as a place for newbie gardeners to find mentors, as starting a garden for the first time can be somewhat overwhelming.

“I think we have plenty of people up here in this area that are knowledgeable enough to present on different topics,” she says, adding that the goal would be to have someone give a presentation during each monthly meeting.

Russel says her vision for the club doesn’t include a president or membership fees. “I’m just imagining a core group that would run it and be able to get speakers, and allow other people to come free of charge,” she says.

The Boundary County Gardening Club will start next month, with its first meeting scheduled for March 9. The meeting will take place upstairs at the visitor’s center and is scheduled to begin around 6 p.m.

Russell said she hopes to continue meetings the second Thursday of each month.

“If you get any gardeners together, they’re gonna talk for hours about gardening,” she says. “And I think we have a lot of information up here that we can share with each other.” n