CLARK COUNTY, Wash. — When it comes to gardening, you don’t need a green thumb to get your hands dirty.
“It's really just to learn about how other people do things,” said Joseph Wujek, of Battle Ground, Wash. “And I have more failures than successes, but that's how you learn.”
Wujek has a natural vegetable garden on his property, meaning he uses no chemical treatments on his plants, allowing them to grow at their own pace.
His garden is one of nine featured on Clark County’s Natural Garden Tour, a self-guided tour on Sunday, June 23 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
“Essentially, we're here to highlight how beautiful natural gardening can be,” said Bethanie Collette with Clark County Green Neighbors. The first stop on last week’s “pre-tour” for hosts and volunteers was at Gregg Andrews’ garden in Vancouver. Plants are native and for the most part are left to grow as they please.
“It is completely and totally natural in the sense that he is finding out ways to cut his water usage, to not use any synthetic chemicals and to plant things that want to be here,” said Collette.
It’s exactly the type of garden the county is highlighting on the tour: free of pesticides, insecticides, fungicides or any other chemical damaging to our watersheds.
“It might take a little bit more labor of love,” Collette said. “But it's better for human health, environmental health and public health.”
Wujek joined on the pre-tour as well and easily gleaned several ideas from some of the other stops.
“You get a community of people with this kind of knowledge of the area, and it can be very helpful,” he said.
“The space that he's using to gardening is kind of pretty edible, focused, and it's also a bit smaller than others, so he makes use of those vertical climbers,” added Collette.
The goal of the tour is to get the community to consider the impacts of their gardening techniques, from choosing native plants, composting and more. Booklets with more information and details, including a map, can be found online or hard copies are at Heritage Farm in Vancouver.
“You're your own tour guide,” Collette said. “You can decide how long you want to spend on a site, how short you want to spend on a site, how you want to move through the space. If you want to talk to any of the volunteers or gardeners, or if you want to just completely immerse yourself in the nature and the beauty of it all, it's up to you!”
For more on Clark County's Natural Garden Tour, visit clarkgreenneighbors.org/natural-garden-tour.
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