Garden group to tour new Chief Garry Community Garden

The relatively new Spokane Community Gardens organization is going on tour next week, part of a monthly series of tours.

The upcoming tour is set for Wednesday from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Chief Garry Community Garden, which was developed over the past two years.

The free garden tour at 2103 E. Mission Ave. is open to the public, including families and children.

It is located next to Christ the King Anglican Church in the Chief Garry Park neighborhood.

The Spokane Community Gardens group was formed last fall to coordinate activity at 40 community gardens in the Spokane area, according to Pat Munts, who is directing the program through the WSU Extension and the Spokane County Conservation District. Munts also writes a gardening column for the Voice weekly in The Spokesman-Review.

The effort is being made possible by a grant from the National Association of Conservation Districts.

The Chief Garry Community Garden replaces a former Pumphouse Garden in the Bemiss neighborhood, she said.

Katie Jones, coordinator of the Chief Garry garden, said the idea of the garden and the event is to “call attention to the gardens within the neighborhood and how neighbors might use the gardens to provide produce for their families.”

Munts in an email said, “The significance of this is that Spokane’s community gardens are now able to be a strong voice for neighborhood food and community-building. This adds to our growing reputation as a community that celebrates grassroots community development.”

Plans call for developing a tool-lending library for clippers, mowers, tillers and the like, Jones said.

Also, the organization wants to develop a list of experts to help newbie gardeners, she said.

“Most of our beds are filled,” Jones said. “We try to reserve them for folks in the Chief Garry neighborhood. But we also have three dedicated beds that we just grow produce for neighbors in the neighborhood.”

Munts said that Avista helped build the new Chief Garry garden, including creating handicapped-accessible plots that the neighborhood leaders hope to turn over to veterans to tend. The garden also has a drip-line watering system.