Seattle Community Gardening History Project

Sundial at Bradner Gardens Park. An old landfill, an abandoned airstrip, reclaimed wetlands, a public utility right-of-way, the top of a parking garage! All these are bits of the urban landscape repurposed for the growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. One of the fascinating aspects of Seattle's community gardens is the variety of landscapes adapted for their use. Whether "interim" use or permanent, the gardens and p-patches have managed to find homes in odd and interesting places. In its own way, the story of locating gardens is one of waste not, want not. Dumping grounds Several p-patches have found a home on old dump sites. Dumps, both sanctioned and not, have typically been sited on undesirable land -- low-lying and perhaps swampy ground that is unsuitable for building. Such was the huge municipal dump and later landfill at Interbay, as well as the Montlake landfill, the latter on land reclaimed after the lowering of Lake Washington in 1916. Today the Interbay P-...

  The Eastlake neighborhood of Seattle boasts a lovely community garden nearly hidden from view down a steep embankment. In the 1990s, gardeners pulled together to fight threats to their patch. In contrast to the Sand Point P-Patch , the Eastlake garden was located on public land controlled by the city. Unfortunately, this did not guarantee protection when developers came calling. Eastlake had no park such as Magnuson Park at Sand Point to which they could move the garden. In fact, the neighborhood with breathtaking views of Lake Union and the Olympic Mountains had very little green space at all. Faced with this situation, the community decided to combine their efforts and fight for both the garden and a new park. The Shelby Street right-of-way in 1941. Eastlake Avenue is at top; Fairview Avenue at bottom. The lower portion of the hill is the site of the original p-patch. Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, Image #39970. The top of the incline was used as a makeshift parking lot f...