Editor’s note: This is the first post of a quarterly gardening column for residents of Whatcom and Skagit counties.
Whatcom County is an amazing location for gardeners. I have lived in many places — sometimes with no “real” place to garden — but moving back in 1988 felt like coming home. To celebrate, I dove into every gardening project I could find.
But while our close proximity to Puget Sound offers (usually) mild temperatures, the price we pay for it is in rain. Wet weather poses challenges for gardeners, but with proper care and planning, the benefits outweigh the negative impacts.
For best results, it’s necessary to understand a thing or two about dirt. Understanding soil types in our garden spaces is as important as knowing where the sun falls in your yard, or what is the date of the last frost.
Most surface soils in this region were deposited by the glaciers when they melted after the last ice age, approximately 10–12,000 years ago. This soil tends to be high in clay due to the grinding action of glacial movement. Thus, “best farming/garden” soils are alluvial by definition: a combination of rocks, sand and clay. They have been deposited in the low-lying areas by the many rivers and streams that flow into the Puget Sound from the mountains.
Sandy soil can be worked throughout the winter as long the ground is not frozen. Clay soil is less forgiving: We want to avoid overworking it during the winter, as smaller clay particles will stick together and force air out. This compacts soil into a goo that will not support plant growth (although it will hold onto nutrients and water to a greater degree than sandy river bottom).
The trick to protecting your soil in the winter is to protect it from rainfall. But how can I do that, you might ask, if rain is falling every day, everywhere?
The answer is pretty simple: Keep plants growing in it. Plants that germinate in the late summer, sending their roots deep into the soil, will provide a place for water to go. This also provides for channels for soil inhabitants to live — thus preventing soil from compacting during rainfall events.
Plant leaves also protect soil from the hard impact of rain by scattering and dispersing droplets, thus reducing their weight. The numbers are interesting: 1 inch of rain falling on 1 square foot of soil weighs 5.2 pounds. On a 100-square-foot garden space, you have 520 pounds of compression per inch of rain. An acre of farmland is subject to 113.25 tons per inch of rain.
In addition to protecting soil, this planting option increases your harvest time to nearly year-round, especially with the use of row covers and raised beds. Winter temperatures will not allow seeds to germinate — but once cool-weather plants are growing, they will continue to do so (albeit slowly). This gives you the ability to harvest throughout the winter season with minimal protection.
If you don’t want to actually grow things in the winter, you can disperse the compaction effect by leaving green material from summer on the top of growing beds (even the very woody material). This will continue to protect and feed the soil inhabitants, thus providing nutrients to your plants earlier in the spring.
If all that seems too complicated, at the very least, you can cover your beds with cardboard. Just be sure to remove all the packing tape, or you will be picking out of the soil for years!
Winter plant sales and resources
While talking about plants that thrive in winter, I can’t neglect the opportunity to encourage you to plant native plants. For many reasons, natives make sense: Even with climate change on our horizon, the natives are predisposed to be successful in our environment.
I would encourage you to support the Conservation District’s Native Plant Sales this spring: Skagit County has theirs on Sunday, March 9, whereas Whatcom County’s will be on Saturday, March 15. Both districts have great websites with lots of information, plant descriptions and pre-order options.
Additionally, the Salish Seed Swap has its 2025 event on March 8, and the Fairhaven Plant and Tree sale is on March 29 in the Hillcrest Parking Lot. Resilient Seeds is another excellent resource for open-pollinated, sustainably-grown seeds, with sales beginning this month.
Other upcoming gardening events include the Whatcom Farm Expo on Saturday, March 1 at the Northwest Washington Fairgrounds. The expo provides a look at a number of local resources, from local businesses to community groups.
Kelle Rankin-Sunter is a Blaine-based gardener and founder of Blaine CORE (Community Organization for Resources and Education). Her column appears quarterly. Have questions for our columnist? Send to cocoalaney@cascadiadaily.com with Garden in subject line.
