http://www.inlandnwgardening.com/stories Gardening between the Cascades and the Rockies. Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:21:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The local casinos have nothing on Inland Northwest gardeners this year. Mother Nature starts the gardening year with the deck and she deals what she wants. We can only hope to draw a good hand with our experience and effort. Like gamblers though we are always looking for ways to ... http://www.inlandnwgardening.com/stories/2009/10/12/it-was-a-wacky-garden-year/ It was already hot at 10 in the morning. Outside the Spokane Valley Partners Food Bank a couple of dozen people were already lined up in the blazing sun waiting for the 11 a.m. opening time. Barbara Bennet, the food bank’s director was handing out numbers and sending folks to ... http://www.inlandnwgardening.com/stories/2009/08/13/donate-your-extra-produce-to-local-food-banks/ Our cool spring has been perfect for the aphids this year. As a result they are showing up on all kinds of perennials, shrubs and trees. There are literally dozens of different kinds of aphids, many of which prey on particular plants.  They are generally about a sixteenth to an eighth-inch ... http://www.inlandnwgardening.com/stories/2009/07/14/aphids-are-on-the-prowl/ Its spring and the fruit trees are about to bloom. It’s time to start planning how to reduce the chance that you will have to share your apples with codling moths and apple maggots. As it finally warms up, apple trees will soon be blooming. With the blooms will come ... http://www.inlandnwgardening.com/stories/2009/04/29/dealing-with-apple-maggots-and-codling-moths/ This piece first appeared in the Winter 2009 Issue of Master Gardener Magazine; www.mastergardeneronline.com Did the bugs do a number on your garden plants this past growing season? Did they chomp up the leaves of a special plant or suck the life out of your roses? Regardless they took some of ... http://www.inlandnwgardening.com/stories/2009/04/13/inviting-beneficial-insects-into-your-garden/ Geez, Today is April 1 but Mother Nature is still playing winter tricks on us. Monday Spokane broke the all time record for snow set back in the winter of 1949-50 by a tenth of an inch - 93.6 inches. All but 12 of those came in the December and ... http://www.inlandnwgardening.com/stories/2009/04/01/spring-what-spring/ January 27, 2009 Here is a collection of some of my favorite garden seed catalogs. Some from local Northwest sources and a few from around the country that understand short season growing or offer unusual selections. Northwest based companies Ed Hume Seeds Organic and conventional seed company located in Puyallup, WA that specializes ... http://www.inlandnwgardening.com/stories/2009/01/27/some-really-good-seed-catalogs/ January 21, 2009 Where is January going? At least now its getting lighter at 5:00 p.m. I am always surprised how much better I feel when I can see when I am driving home at night. Back to the topic of the day. The record snows around Christmas melted off by about ... http://www.inlandnwgardening.com/stories/2009/01/21/snow-damage-to-shrubs/ December 27 Garden? What garden? If I had one it's now buried under nearly 3 feet of snow. The most we have seen on the ground at one time in the 30 years we've lived on our property. It started on Wednesday morning, December 17 and didn't stop until 4 pm the ... http://www.inlandnwgardening.com/stories/2008/12/27/and-then-the-snow-came/ Friday, Dec 11, 11:30 am Remember the Pac Man game of early computer history? I just checked the Weatherbug radar map and Pac Man  disguised as snow and the promised deep freeze is about to gobble up Spokane. We've been waiting for this storm all week and the weather folks have been hyping ... http://www.inlandnwgardening.com/stories/2008/12/12/the-snow-is-coming/