Endicott Community Garden to start its first year this spring

The new Endicott Community Garden will be holding a planning session on Monday, March 16, at 7 p.m. at the Endicott Library.

The garden project in Endicott was started by the Palouse-Rock Lake Conservation District, headquartered in St. John, and it was funded by a national grant competition through the National Association of Conservation Districts.

The grant also provided funding for the conservation district to launch its own podcast. The podcast will be launched within the next three to six weeks. Titled “Bits of Conservation,” the podcast will be available on Spotify, Google Play, iTunes, etc.

“Our conservation district was awarded funding for the project in February 2019 and we began implementation in late March 2019,” said Andrew Wolfe, conservation coordinator at the Palouse-Lake Rock Conservation District. “The lot was home to nothing more than a large junkpile right along Rebel Flat Creek prior to our work.”

Preparation for the lot came from the help of a lot of different hands, Wolfe said.

Those who helped in preparation for the lot were Gary Cook, landowner of the space, Palouse-Rock Lake Conservation District members, community volunteers and the Washington State Dept. of Fish and Wildlife.

Wolfe mentioned that they also retained services from Ken Van Voorhis at SPVV Landscaping in Spokane. Voorhis designed the new ice rink at Riverfront Park in Spokane and with the input of the conservation district and community members designed the community garden lot.

The only concern the conservation district and community volunteers had when working on the garden space was a water connection.

Wolfe said this was one major obstacle that required a lot of attention.

“The lot was an undeveloped parcel having no utility connections,” Wolfe said. “We learned through our permitting process with the town of Endicott that the town's allowable number of water connections had been reduced in 2009/10 to only 190 allowable connections – we would not be allowed to add a connection to the undeveloped lot until the allowable water connections for the town increased.”

To try to get a water connection for the community garden, Wolfe said they had to deal with different bureaucratic hurdles with the Department of Health to increase the number of allowable water connections.

While trying to manage water connections, work continued on the ground in the meantime.

“With tremendous help from Steve Nelson from Century West Engineering, with whom the town of Endicott has been working on other concurrent projects, as well as Public Works Supervisor Larry Jones, finally in February 2020 the town of Endicott received an increased number of allowable water connections by the Department of Health,” Wolfe said.

Endicott now has approximately 230 allowable water connections and after the town completes a water efficiency study, there could possibly be more.

Just in this past week, water was connected to the city system for the community garden.

“We are poised for a splendid growing season,” Wolfe said.

The produce grown at the community garden will primarily go towards the Endicott Food Bank.

The conversation at the planning session will give a better idea of who is interested in participating in the garden and what should be planted.

“Dave Gillman, who administers the food bank in town has given us a handful of items so this session will ideally determine how much of each and where each will be planted,” Wolfe said. “Additionally, we're looking for input on project ideas for excess materials, as well as what types of learning opportunities participants might like to see conducted at the garden like our March 21st apple tree grafting working shop.”