Walla Walla couple finds gardening oasis

When Mark Brucks and Susan Monahan were getting ready to retire after living and working in Austin, TX for twenty years, they carefully developed a list of criteria for their new home town. The list included walkability, a place with a college or university, and room to garden.

For years they spent summer and Christmas vacations on the road, visiting towns "Colorado and west, "looking for just the right spot. A friend in Centralia asked, "Have you ever heard of Walla Walla?"

So of course, they visited and in fact made sure to visit twice, once in the summer, and once in the winter, to get a true sense of the place.

It was on their second visit, the morning after Christmas 2007, that they saw the listing for a beautiful bungalow on Thorne Street. A vintage Craftsman home with a covered porch and a babbling creek running through, Brucks said they probably "got the realtor out of bed," with their realization that this was the place.

Although the house was bigger than they needed, the 1/2-acre lot in the middle of the block came with the house, and once they discovered that, they put an offer in right away.

After a year of backyard gardening, Brucks started creating garden rows in the middle lot. Neighbors with adjoining backyards were given space to grow, initially just throwing their hoses over their back fences for watering. Brucks added irrigation about six years ago, and provided gates to the families who were gardening, "So that people wouldn't have to climb over their fences to get to their plots."

Families have come and gone as gardening participants, and now Brucks welcomes three other households to garden alongside his 12 rows.

While his favorite thing to grow is tomatoes, and he has 18 different plants currently, he also grows: cauliflower, acorn, yellow and butternut squash, cantaloupe, zucchini, carrots, leeks, onions, 'all the herbs', snap and sugar peas, beans, broccoli, bok choy, brussels sprouts, kale, 'all the greens', fifteen different varieties of peppers, potatoes, parsnips, garlic, blueberries, raspberries, peaches, and pears.

He sets aside two rows for the nearby Pantry Shelf food bank, located at Walla Walla's Presbyterian Church basement, growing tomatoes, potatoes, a 'whole bunch of peppers,' squash, and parsnips. Brucks said that although the Food Bank weighs the produce he donates each time he comes in, he's never kept track of the amount he's donated.

Plans for the future include filling up the rest of the space with more garden, "But to do so would require removing some trees to make the spots sunny enough to be productive, and I am loathed to take down trees," he said.

As a neighbor to all the garden growing, it is lovely to see all the gentle activity out my back window, and I can personally vouch that the raspberries are delicious!