Victor Garden Club
President: Tressa Baker (406-642-6204)
The Victor Garden Club meets the second Monday of the month at 12:45 pm at the Victor Senior Center. We currently have 27 members and support a Junior Garden Club called "Operation Green Thumb" with 22 junior gardeners. Our membership includes 3 master gardeners, a flower show judge and a student flower show judge. Please call our President for more information and drop by one of our meetings. We have a garden tour scheduled after each summer's meeting. The public is welcome to visit and listen to one of our speakers; then we hope you join our active group and get growing!
The Club owns the local Victor Park and it is used by the garden club, fire department and various community organizations throughout the year. The Club officially opens the Park on the first of May and closes it October 1. During the months of June, July and August the Park is used every Sunday for the "Breakfast in the Park" hosted by different Victor non-profit organizations at no charge. We host two of these breakfasts to help raise money to maintain the Park. "Chief Victor Days" is hosted in July in the Park; the Garden Club has a float and a booth during this event.
We've had a busy year. This is a sampling of some of our community projects:
This winter our members hand appliqued a quilt of 20 different flowers, to be raffled off at our last Huckleberry Pancake Breakfast in the Park on August 29th.
The club sponsored two of our members attendance at the Seattle Flower Show. They brought back information covering slug bait to play equipment and lots of garden and plant descriptions.
"Operation Green Thumb" -- our high school-age, junior garden club -- started work in the Victor School greenhouse in February. We hosted a "Valentine's Party" for the students to show off the hard work club members had invested in replacing the rotten wood and refitted side panels and a new plastic roof on the greenhouse. What a difference it has made in this year's growing season!
The Club applied for and received a $1,000 grant from the Montana Dept. of Health and Human Services' Cardiovascular Health Program to support a Community Garden. The Club will be working with students this summer from the "Ropes" program to raise the vegetable plants in the School greenhouse. We will be overseeing the garden and the School will have classes on canning and preserving jams. The vegetables will be donated to the Senior Center or given to the student workers. We have also planned a few garden tours during the summer with the students.
Last April we dug over 100 Bitterroot plants that were going to be destroyed by the Highway 93 construction project. Some plants were given away and some are put aside to replant to the original area after constuction is complete.
During May we held plant sales from the School's greenhouse to help pay for our Park caretaker.
This fall we will be assisting the younger Victor school children plant spring bulbs around their new playground. We are waiting for word on a Dutch Bulb grant from the National Gardening Association to support this project.
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