Seeds for growth: Experts offer gardening tips at Everett library

Published 1:30 am Monday, April 10, 2023

EVERETT — Most bugs, like ladybugs, bumblebees or earthworms, can keep your garden pollinated and protected from predators, according to master gardener Dave Lucey.

But tent caterpillars, slugs or hornets can chew through your plants.

“In gardening in general, things are good or bad to you,” Lucey said Saturday. “How we define bad really comes down to, ‘Is it where we want it, doing what we want it to do?’”

Lucey is one of four guest lecturers featured at the Everett Public Library’s spring gardening Saturday series. The two-month program offers basic tips to gardeners of all levels, from composting to plant propagation.

All the lecturers are from Washington State University’s Snohomish County Master Gardeners, an outreach program that educates home gardeners in the area.

About a dozen home gardeners gathered Saturday afternoon for the program’s second installment. Lucey’s lecture focused on bugs. Many recognized some of the pests in their own garden, and took careful notes on how to eradicate them.

To get rid of the “bad bugs,” Lucey and other master gardeners recommend the Integrated Pest Management approach, a set of gardening practices that use “least-toxic pesticides” to reduce the source of food, water and shelter for unwanted pests. WSU and master gardeners created Hortsense, a fact sheet for beginners to understand Integrated Pest Management.

For example, tulips with streaks, stripes or feathering may be affected by a virus spread by aphids, according to the fact sheet. About the only way to deal with it is to uproot the affected plants and all daughter bulbs, then purchase virus-tested plants — because insecticides aren’t much use here.

Attendees Tisa Castaneda and Chad Walsh started their home garden in Everett a couple years ago. Walsh, a self-proclaimed “berry nut,” said they grow everything from berry plants to annual vegetables in their front and back yards. Walsh said their gardening process is “a lot of online research and trial and error.”

The beginner gardeners often come to the library for books on how to keep their garden sustainable, and plan to attend the next two sessions of the gardening series.

“Anything we can learn for free about gardening is a great resource,” Castaneda said.

The series is inspired by the Un-Bee-Leaf-Able Seed Library, an antique card cabinet on the library’s second floor filled with dozens of free seed packets for the public to grow in their own garden. The seed library was opened last year by a group of librarians passionate about gardening and sustainability. Next to the card holder is a donation box for gardeners to donate the seeds from their own crops.

Librarian Molly Moore says the gardening series is designed to be paired with the seed library.

“You can give anyone seeds, but they might not know what to do with it,” Moore said. “We want to make sure we’re educating folks and supporting them.”

The Spring Gardening Saturday Series will continue 11 a.m. April 15 at the main branch of the Everett Public Library, 2702 Hoyt Ave., with a presentation on composting.

Upcoming events at the main branch of the Everett Public Library

April 15: Spring Gardening Saturday Series: Composting

April 22: Let’s Grow! A gardening program for ages 6 to 14

May 6: Spring Gardening Saturday Series: Vegetables in Containers

Maya Tizon; 425-339-3434; maya.tizon@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @mayatizon.