Pat Munts

Jonathon Ganji is graduating with the The Oaks Classical Christian Academy’s class of 2020

My friend Sylvia Passe sounded a little desperate during a recent online neighborhood conversation.

Last week’s record rainfall was perfect for gardening. It was a long, steady rain that soaked deeply into the soil, catching us up from the almost-inch deficit we were experiencing. If you have turned on your sprinklers, you can probably decrease the amount of time you are watering for a couple of weeks. With the warm weather predicted for this weekend, we can safely begin planting the tomatoes, peppers, beans, cukes and other frost-sensitive vegetables. They will, however, just sit for a couple of weeks because the soil is still cool. Keep some frost protection coverings like tarps or light blankets handy. Mother Nature is still in charge, and she can throw in a weather curve ball. If using coverings at night, be sure to remove them in the morning as the temperatures under the covers can get hot enough to cook the plants.

Monday marked the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens. I was mowing my yard that day before a really big (or so I thought) thunderstorm moved in. My geologist husband missed the career high point. He was in New York City and was not happy to miss it. All I had was an old Instamatic camera with half a roll of film to record it. For those of you who didn’t get to experience this event, just imagine everything covered with a heavy, gray talcumlike powder. This rock powder contained a lot of abrasive silica. It got into everything and wore down engine and machinery parts very quickly. The city street crews had to mix it with damp sawdust to be able to scoop it off the street before it plugged storm drains and turned to something that resembled concrete. Wheat farmers in the Palouse got yields of over 100 bushels an acre that summer but they had to sharpen their combine blades after each trip around the field.

Vegetable planting is in full swing, and it’s time to get the potatoes in the ground.

I am writing this week’s article in celebration of the life of Dawn Rae Anselmo, a longtime member of the Inland Empire Dahlia Society and a dahlia breeder known around the world. Dawn died April 10, leaving behind dozens of people she taught to appreciate dahlias. She was 80. Dawn served in many leadership roles in the Inland Empire Dahlia Society and the North Idaho Dahlia Society. In 1980 Dawn and her husband, Norm, introduced the Inland Northwest line of dahlias at the national show held in Spokane. At the 1992 national show, they received the Best New Seedling Award for Inland Dynasty, a huge, pale yellow dinner plate dahlia that went on to win the Stanley Johnson award in 1993.

The staying at home order is providing more time to work in our gardens

With leaf buds starting to grow on roses, it’s time to begin pruning to get the plants ready for summer, Pat Munts writes.

We’ve had some beautiful sunny weather over the past couple of weeks that has been good for our cooped-up spirits.

Vegetable gardening is taking off so let’s talk about some of the basics of starting a vegetable garden. Vegetable gardens need to be placed in a sunny, level spot. The more sun you get, the better your production will be. At a minimum, vegetables need six hours of sun a day. A little shade in the late afternoon is fine, especially during July and August heat. I am partial to using raised beds both because they are easier to maintain and when filled with good compost, they provide a good home for roots. Gardeners who use in-ground beds are faced with a wide variety of soil types that can be hard to manage and contain literally millions of weed seeds.

These are strange times to say the least. But the good news is we can go outside and enjoy the fresh air if we practice proper social distancing.

Mother Nature reminded us who’s still in charge last weekend. It was cold enough that there might be some damage to emerging buds, but remember, plants are tough.

As I write this on a Sunday evening, the Weather Underground long-range forecast is saying our cold weather will have one last hurrah this weekend. Temperatures will be in the low 20s and high teens Saturday and Sunday mornings. So, if you have ideas of doing some transplanting over the weekend, find another garden job. I brought back several ponies of lettuce, spinach and cilantro from my recent adventure to Seattle and hauled them into the garden until I had time to plant them. With the coming cold weather, I laid several layers of floating row cover over them to hold in the ground heat. All these varieties are frost tolerant but not down to 19 F.

Last week, many Spokane gardeners made the journey over the pass to the annual Northwest Flower and Garden Festival in Seattle. I know because I kept running into Spokane gardening friends at every turn. The display gardens were beautiful, the seminars inspiring, and the shopping, well, let’s just say it will take a while to pay it off. There were four major trends at this year’s show. First, the featured plant was the new breeds of upward facing hellebores or Lenten roses. Hellebores are semi-evergreen plants that bloom in late winter and very early spring. With our lack of snow and warmer winter, mine were blooming in early February.

Blueberries have become a very popular fruit for home gardeners. In some health circles, they are considered a superfood because of their high levels of antioxidants, fiber and vitamin C. To others, including myself, they are just plain good for eating right off the plant. As we roll into spring, here are a few tips about growing and caring for them.

It looks like we just might get away with a mild winter. So, where do we go from here?

This is kind of a show-and-tell article.

We’ve gotten through the holiday season and I’m beginning to hear people talk about spring. While the warmer weather is still a ways off, it is time to think about installing nesting boxes for some of our native bees.

We aren’t used to the sloppy wet snow we got last week. Usually our snow is the dry, fluffy stuff that is easy to clear out. The wet stuff did some damage, but it could have been much worse. So, what can be done about broken branches and bent shrubs?

Over the last 10 years there has been a lot of interest across the country, including in Spokane, in keeping small livestock on city lots. People wanted to keep chickens for the freshest eggs. Other people wanted fresh goat’s milk and wool fiber for weaving. Still others loved the companionship and novelty of small breeds of pigs. In spring 2014, the city of Spokane joined the trend and passed an ordinance that allows residents to keep goats, sheep and small pigs on city lots. But to do so, there are rules that need to be followed. As always.