The following is written by Sumner Mayor Dave Enslow:

I know it happens every spring, but it sure seems like Sumner is exploding more than ever with color this year.  I’m not sure if gardeners choose to live in Sumner or something in the soil turns all our thumbs green–either way, I love walking or riding my bike throughout town to see the beautiful yards.  All our nurseries are doing brisk business selling flowers and Sumner’s Shepherd’s Field Community Garden is filled with gardeners and looking beautiful.  I hear Burr Mosby is planting leeks in the 100 acres he rents from the City.  The City is even looking at the best way to preserve land for farming in its Comprehensive Plan.

Of course, it is also officially Puget Sound Starts Here month to remind us all that what we do in our yard washes with every rain into our rivers and out to the Sound.  In other words, we all have a responsibility to fertilize in correct amounts and at correct times so that it’s not going into streams.  We want our lawns, not our rivers, to turn green! You can even try a natural yard, although I noticed that when the farms south of town spread their very natural manure, people in town don’t much like the scent of it.

Sumner’s roots are in the soil, and it always makes me chuckle a little bit when someone from out of town stops by to talk to us about the benefits of gardening.  Look around!  It’s all around us. Sumner is looking beautiful, and I thank all of you who haveplanted a garden, pulled a weed or pruned a hedge for making it so.