Pat Munts

Spring is asparagus season. The tender green spears appear almost magically from bare ground in many places in the Inland Northwest, and not all of them are in backyard gardens.

Imagine this if you will: You stop in a neighborhood on your way home from work and buy fresh vegetables and eggs from a small backyard market garden. You continue on to buy some fresh apples and herbs a few blocks away. Then you top it off with a fresh bouquet of flowers from your neighbor’s urban flower farm.

It’s time to get your weed control plan in place, Pat Munts writes.

My absolute favorite early July treat is to take a carton of whipping cream to the garden in one hand and a raspberry harvesting bowl in the other. There is nothing better than a bowl of cold cream mixed with sun-warmed berries eaten on the spot.

The grocery ads have been teasing us for weeks with luscious pictures of strawberries. Sadly, these berries often have no flavor. To get berries with real flavor, you have to grow your own.

Controlling these pests goes far beyond grabbing a bottle of insecticide. It starts with a program called integrated pest management that calls for non-chemical management techniques that reduce the possibility of an infestation, coupled with chemical control when the pests are present.

Early-season vegetables need the cooler temperatures of spring and early fall to grow well. Once it starts getting hot the middle to end of June, they begin to fade away. Many of them are also sensitive to day length around the summer solstice (June 21) and will begin flowering or bolting to produce seed. Cool-season vegetables include carrots, potatoes, spinach, peas, lettuce, cabbage family vegetables (kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts), cilantro, kohlrabi, beet, radish, turnip, onions and leeks, to name the main ones. Seed-packet information usually notes these as crops that can be planted as soon as the soil can be worked. Given that our soil is finally drying out, we can start planting some seedlings in the next couple of weeks.

There is green in the lawns! It may be moss but it’s still green so I’ll take it for now. With the record rains and snow we’ve had since last fall, conditions are now perfect for moss development. As the weather warms it is thriving.

Underneath that blanket of snow a lot of critters were having a party and they left behind a mess for us to clean up. Throw in a little snow mold and it isn’t a pretty sight.

In the process of pulling frozen branches and wood off the ground to get ready to cut I turned over an old piece of lumber and lo and behold up comes a red wiggler worm very much alive and well, wiggling. I was totally amazed.

So we are going to have to look inside for our green fix for a while longer and play with the next best thing; our houseplants. As the daylight lengthens, this is the perfect time to spruce them up and get them ready for their yearly adventure on the patio or deck.

In recent years, interest has grown in foraging for native edible plants. Many of the plants we commonly see in the wild in the region have edible berries, leaves, flower and even roots. The nice thing is that you don’t have to go into the wild to find them – many of them will thrive in your yard.

This year’s event features Mary Robson of Port Townsend, Washington, as the keynote speaker. Robson will be telling the story of how roots work with a little help from their friends, soil fungi and bacteria. Robson is a master storyteller when it comes to explaining how things work in the garden. She combines her years as a WSU extension horticulture specialist, author, writer and gardener to narrate the story behind the science and the beauty of the microorganisms in the soil’s rhizosphere.

In late November, the Spokane Community Gardens Association was created in partnership with the Spokane Associated Garden Clubs. The Associated Garden Clubs have been supporting community beautification projects for decades and wanted to expand their mission to growing food. The new group will bring the more than 20 community gardens in the area under one network that will help marshal resources, develop gardens and provide an advocacy voice for community food production.

Primroses are one of the earliest bloomers in the spring not far behind the early snowdrops, crocus and tulips.

You can start seeds in any space that can be kept at an even temperature of 60 to 70 degrees. This can be a basement room, the spare bedroom or a corner of the family room away from furnace vents and cold windows. Windowsills are probably not the best place for seed starting because our nights will be too cold well into March. Freshly planted seeds germinate faster with a little bottom heat provided by a greenhouse heat mat set under your trays. They are available at some garden centers and online and come in several sizes.

It’s winter and we aren’t going to see our gardens any time soon so here are some educational opportunities to take advantage of in the near future. To register for these classes, go to the WSU Spokane County Extension’s website at

While the garden is hidden under snow, head to Lake Coeur d’Alene to see the bald eagles that come each winter to feast on spawned-out kokanee.

Recent snow and cold temperatures have kicked off the Great Tree Hunt for Christmas with style.