Gardening Lore

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The day is gorgeous. Warm sun is melting the last of the snow on the ground, and leaves are just beginning to bud on the trees . . . proving, once again, that April in the Wood River Valley can be deceptively inspiring.

A woman bursts through the doors at Webb Garden Center, where I work, and says, “Point me to the annuals.” I smile and explain that they haven’t arrived yet. “What?” she exclaims. “Then point me to the perennials.” Again, I explain that they haven’t arrived yet. “Well then,” she says as she heads out the door, “I guess I’ll just have to go to Twin Falls!” About three minutes later, she bursts in again. “Point me to the roses, I’m planting something today!”

And so it goes in this high mountain desert we call home. Local gardeners itch to get their hands in the soil and dirt under their nails. Some are recent arrivals from warmer climates and can’t believe they have to wait almost two months longer to hit their knees and let the smell of the good earth waft its way to their nostrils. “But, back home …” they say, and we at the garden centers just keep trying to convince them to be patient.

Over many years of gardening, old-timers have passed along some apt wisdom about what it takes to garden up and down this valley. My first recollection (from back in the 1970s) of local gardening lore was the advice to never plant anything before the Papoose Club Plant Sale, which usually took place in early June. I didn’t understand why back then, but I do know now why most gardeners here waited for that magic date. We can have a frost, even snow, all the way into July, but our killing frost date is usually sometime in early June. We range from Agricultural Zone 4 at the southern end, around Carey, Picabo and Bellevue, to Zone 3 from about mid-Valley to Ketchum—and possibly even Zone 2 farther north, where the growing season can be as short as two months.

I work with—or have had the opportunity to pick the brains of—several of these great, local, longtime gardeners. Some of their lore and bits of advice are whimsical and fun; others just plain make sense, when you think about it.

A number of my advisers commented on the forsythia blooming: Its many flowers won’t open until the ground thaws, marking the time you can plant cool-season crops like broccoli, radishes, rhubarb, and peas. Helen Stone of Hailey says, “I do my taxes, I plant my peas: taxes in the mail, peas in the ground.” Hardy, cool-season crops can be planted six to eight weeks before the last killing frost.

Mark Palmer at Webb Nursery says to apply pre-emergents (weed seed control) between the forsythia and the lilac bloom. >>>