Do you have a garden or grow food? Do you want to display your support with a garden flag? Interested gardeners can join the 5B Resilience Gardens initiative by completing a membership survey. Once the survey is completed, a 5B Resilience Gardens representative will provide additional information to each prospective member based upon survey responses.
Do you want to grow kale and carrots? Are peas your favorite vegetable? Cool season crops do best with temperatures between 45 and 70 degrees and are the first plants to grow & harvest in your garden in the spring. Learn more about cool season gardening in an upcoming 5B Resilience Gardens webinar on Thursday, March 18. Presenters will discuss key considerations for cool season gardening and answer questions from participants. Register here.
March 25 - 5B Resilience Gardens presents one key principle, Food Production, in this webinar hosted by the Hailey Public Library. Growing Food at Home will highlight ways to integrate Food Production into your home or community space, including edible landscape, container gardening, seed saving, food sharing, and food preservation.
Featured presenters are Amy Mattias, program director of the Sun Valley Institute for Resilience, and co-manager of the Wood River Seed Library, gardening in the Wood River Valley for 5 seasons, and Manon Gaudreau, Master Gardener and co-manager of the Wood River Seed Library, gardening in the Wood River Valley for over 10 years. RSVP to kristin.fletcher@haileypubliclibrary.org
Mark your calendar for a series of gardening events hosted by Hailey Public Library and 5B Resilience Gardens! These webinars will happen on Thursday March 25, April 15, and May 27. Register via Hailey Public Library by emailing kristin.fletcher@haileypubliclibrary.org
We plan to host two seed & plant exchanges in April and May of 2021. These will take place at the Upper Big Wood River Grange and will include both free and for-purchase plants & seeds. Mark your calendar for Saturday April 24 & Saturday May 29 - more details to come!
Due to COVID-19, the Wood River Seed Library is opting for low contact seed cleaning & processing to prepare for the 2021 season. Please email woodriverseedlibrary@gmail.com if you have seeds to share, want to clean and package seeds in your own home, or need resources for seed saving.
Gardening in high-desert, high-altitude climates like we have here in Blaine County can be tricky for new gardeners. We've compiled local resources to help you be successfully in growing your 5B Resilience Garden this year and for years to come!
We recommend shopping locally whenever possible. We will continue to update this with more listings.
We will be launching a mentorship program spring of 2021. If you are interested in joining this program, please fill out the membership survey
We will host garden tours starting in spring of 2021. Until then, please enjoy our slideshow featuring various examples of resilience garden guiding principles.
Piloted in fall of 2020, seasonal family cooking kits provide activities for families to do together, while learning about growing food, cooking from-scratch, using seasonal ingredients, saving seeds, and other food and eco-literacy lessons. 100 kits were available, at no cost, to families with PreK-4th grade children in Blaine County. Ingredients were sourced from regional farmers including Lookout Farm, Sunset Butte Organics and Ernie's Organics. The Wood River Seed Library provided pots and seeds. Natural Grocers and Webb Nursey provided donations of soil, bags and other packaging materials.
We are hard at work preparing 300 SPROUT kits to be distributed to families in February 2021.
You can download the fall activity packet here.
Gardens are unique to each individual and each space. While honoring the diversity and individuality of each garden, it was important for us to identify guiding principles that all resilience gardens share. 5B Resilience Gardens embrace at least one principle per section.
The 5B Resilience Gardens initiative seeks to broaden community access to local gardening resources, enhance visibility of existing and new gardens throughout the community, and cultivate a vibrant gardening community through resource sharing, collaborative events and education opportunities. We are defining resilience gardening as any level of edible (culinary and medicinal) plant production that is not sold on a commercial scale. This may include potted plants, edible landscape, gardens in yards or larger shared plots.
Cultivating personal and community resilience through gardening provides a tangible way for individuals to connect with nature, the food they eat, and the broader community. Raising awareness of food production as a means to self and community sufficiency is key to being resilient in the face of the current pandemic, and future impacts related to climate change, economic turmoil, and public health crises.
Started in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 5B Resilience Gardens is a collaboration facilitated by Sun Valley Institute for Resilience. Collaborating organizations include Climate Action Coalition of the Wood River Valley, Ketchum Recreation Department, I Have a Dream Foundation - Idaho, Sawtooth Botanical Garden, University of Idaho Extension & 4-H, Upper Big Wood River Grange, Wood River Community YMCA, Wood River Land Trust, Wood River Seed Library and gardeners throughout our valley.
