Liberty Lake opens signups for community garden plots; goats munch down weeds

Spring is coming to Liberty Lake, which means it’s time to sign up for garden plots and the goats are back in town to eat weeds from hard-to-reach areas in the city’s parks and golf courses.

Liberty Lake residents usually sign up for one of the 22 garden plots in the Arboretum near City Hall or 16 plots in Rocky Hill Park in January, but the sign-up process kept getting delayed because no one was in City Hall to accept applications, said administrative assistant Tait Hunter.

“We had to change a lot of things this year,” she said.

Signups begin promptly at 8 a.m. today on a first-come, first-served basis for Liberty Lake residents only. The fee to use a raised bed for the growing season is $25. Water is available on-site, but people are responsible for their own planting, weeding and maintenance.

While people may come to City Hall to sign up for their plot, they’re asked to remain in their cars instead of forming a line due to limits on the number of people in the building at the same time, Hunter said. People also had the ability to request an application in advance via email and those can be emailed after 8 a.m. as well.

“I’m sure we’ll have a lot of people,” Hunter said.

Some people who have a plot year after year request the same one each time and attempts will be made to accommodate those requests, Hunter said.

“Unfortunately we can’t guarantee it,” she said. “People tend to have their favorite plots.”

The plots can be used to grow anything , whether it’s tomatoes and other vegetables or just flowers. They provide an outlet for people who don’t have the ability to have a backyard garden, and they’ve been quite popular, Hunter said.

“Everyone is a little bored,” she said. “The gardens are just something to look forward to.”

Spring also means the Liberty Lake goats are back. The goats are used to eat weeds in public areas and they’ve also been popular, drawing small crowds as they munch on noxious weeds. Those crowds and the lack of seasonal staff to move the goats around the city meant that the goats stayed home last year.

In the offseason the goats live with the city’s Operations and Maintenance director, Jennifer Camp. Last year when the goats were forced to spend all spring and summer on her farm, Camp said they seemed to miss the interaction they get from people who would come see them.

They’ve been eating through a rough area at the Trailhead Golf Course for the last two weeks. “They seem to be happy,” Camp said.

This year there is enough seasonal staff to move the goats from place to place once they’ve eaten all the weeds, Camp said, and the pandemic isn’t as much of a worry. There are signs up that encourage goat watchers to maintain social distancing, however.

“I think everyone is so knowledgeable with COVID,” she said. “They’re used to social distancing.”

The city announced the return of the 10 goats in a Facebook post that got a lot of attention.

“The goats always bring in the most responses of any posts we post,” she said.

The goats are used in areas where it would require a lot of manpower to remove the weeds, Camp said.

“We prefer not to spray for weeds,” she said. “We’ll put them in areas where it’s really challenging to get equipment in.”

This year the goats will visit their usual stomping grounds – Trailhead Golf Course, Rocky Hill Park and Pavillion Park.

Camp said the goats having a year off shouldn’t impact the number of weeds too much. In the years they’ve been on patrol they’ve controlled the weeds quite well, she said.

“Weed populations take years to establish, for the most part,” she said. “One season wasn’t enough to take us back to square one.”

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Nina Culver can be reached at nculver47@gmail.com