Appreciating Local Farmers: Rachael Roussin & Happy Valley Greens

July 31 to August 6 is Farmer Appreciation Week in British Columbia, and all across the province communities with farmers’ markets will be marking the occasion. The BC Association of Farmers’ Markets is promoting the events. Not surprisingly, Rossland is having its own event this Thursday, on what the weather forecast suggests might be the first shower-free Thursday since the market opened at the end of June.

All kinds of fun stuff has been planned, including free mini cupcakes baked by Becky Gilhula of Sweet Dreams Inn and Cakery, live music, an arts and crafts table for kids, and some street art where people can bring a hat, shirt, or bag to decorate with paints.

To do our own bit in celebrating Farmer Appreciation Week, the Telegraph thought it would be a great idea to profile one of our own local food growers, and, appropriately, the one who is also the moving force behind our own farmers’ market, Rachael Roussin.

Hailing from Ladner, BC, and of fisherman stock, Roussin initially came to Rossland six years ago to ski and fell in love with the town. A couple of years later, after coming and going, she settled here and started a back yard garden. It was a frustrating undertaking, however, and she didn’t have much success at first. Part of her frustration had to do with the soil.

“I remember my first garden. It was just like a clay lot,” Roussin said during a personal tour of her Happy Valley Greens operation the other day. “And I was like ‘why isn’t anything growing?’ And I just wanted to learn more. I think lately, people have started to reexamine where their food comes from and they start getting a little worried because they don’t know how to grow anything. And I totally went through that. I thought ‘I don’t know how to grow anything!’”

In order to learn more, four years ago Roussin started to volunteer at Earthly Organics in Fruitvale, and she credits her time there with teaching her the bulk of what she learned in order to make her own edible gardens successful.

Her back yard garden bloomed, but it wasn’t enough, and it was small and north-facing. Roussin wanted a larger spot so she could grow her own squash and pickling cucumbers. Eventually, last year, she found an absentee landowner couple in Happy Valley who was willing to let Roussin make a large garden on part of their acreage. And soon, Happy Valley Greens was born.

Roussin’s Happy Valley Greens operation is located on a steep south-east facing slope of the valley, and contains several rows of terraced beds. All the work (clearing the land of weeds and brush, and digging it all up, and putting in the beds) was done by hand. This was no small feat considering the size, steepness, and wildness of the space.

But why greens?

“I thought there was a market for it,” said Roussin. Greens also grow well in Rossland and are ready earlier in the season than other vegetable crops like carrots and squash. “Rossland’s climate is actually preferable for greens. We have cooler nights, so we don’t get the bitter lettuce and bolting spinach - and you do get those things, but not to the same extent you do in Trail. I think it would be more challenging to grow greens mixes in Trail, just because it’s just so hot. Greens like a cooler climate, so it’s perfect.”

The variety of greens Roussin grows is impressive and includes different types of mesclun mix, lettuces, baby kale, chard, beet tops, and arugula. The greens are succession planted, which means crops are continually being planted as other crops are harvested, and as such, every week is different when it comes to what Roussin sells at the market.

“This is not a fine art. I’m just planting what comes to mind. So some weeks you might have more arugula, some weeks you might have more kale, and some weeks you might have more lettuce. Some weeks you might have no lettuce. So it’s always changing.”

She sells at least 20 bags of her gourmet greens each week at the market and she also is now selling her greens to two Rossland restaurants, the Drift and the Gypsy at Red.

Roussin is emphatic that she gardens and produces greens to sell not to make money, but because she loves doing it.

“By no means is this a business. It pays for my habits. Yes, I do make a profit from it, but it all goes back into the garden. It keeps me afloat. It pays for my seeds, it pays for my remay [a porous gardening cloth that extends the growing season and helps with moisture retention], and this year it may pay for all my canning endeavours. But it’s not like my job.”

In order for it to be her job, she’d need a lot more land. In order for her to expand and do Happy Valley Greens as a full-fledged business, she’d need a long term lease on at least an acre of land.

With a degree in Latin American Studies and political science from UBC, Roussin’s works as a communications and community engagement consultant, and just found out on Wednesday that she’s been hired as the administrator for the Rossland Council of Arts and Culture.

“I do aspire to be a farmer, but I am very realistic about the sustainability of that in itself,” Roussin stated. “Any farmer in the West Kootenays can tell you that you can’t make a living [at it]. And I’m not ignorant in going into farming thinking I can be the anomaly. But I would like to do it in conjunction with other work. Because I really love farming, and I would really love for this to be my full time job. But food just doesn’t pay the mortgage.”

Anyone out there who has an acre or knows someone who has an acre they might be willing to lease, please drop Rachael a line at rachael.roussin@gmail.com