Seattle Community Gardening History Project

  Vertical garden at Freeway Estates Community Orchard My recent posts have focused on Seattle's many and varied P-Patches. But there are a number of other community gardens in the city, some folded into city programs, others run by private groups. Many have sprung up in the last decade or so as a new surge of interest in food security and food justice blooms. Let's take a look at a few of these! Meadowbrook Community Garden, 2021. Small Garden, Big Goals: The Meadowbrook Community Gardens and Orchards Meadowbrook Community Gardens and Orchards are made up of several components on the grounds of the Meadowbrook Community Center and Playfield in Northeast Seattle. A small communal garden sits adjacent to a large sprawling hillside planted with orchard trees and an "edible hedge." The grounds are owned by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation; The gardens and orchards are maintained by the neighborhood gardeners with help from  Meadowbrook Community CARE (aka ...

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-...

"You don't just inherit dirt here, you inherit the past, whoever was there planting things." -- Donna Kalka, gardener Sandwiched between 15th Avenue NW and the railroad tracks, in the cleft between the Queen Anne and Magnolia hills, lies a sort-of no man's land. Part tide lands, part low-lying swale, the Interbay area has been used for everything from a dump to a parking lot, to railroad yards and light industry, to athletic fields and golf courses. And a P-Patch. The Interbay P-Patch was founded in 1974, just one year after the start of the city's P-Patch program. In point of fact, informal gardening may have been going on for some time on the little-used acres prior to the official opening. Some 47 acres of property were (and are) managed by the Seattle Parks Department; the P-Patch, on one acre at the heart of the site, was surrounded by athletic fields and a golf course. Squeezed on all sides, it was just a matter of time before, like Sand Point and Eastlake ...

  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...

"Inch by inch, row by row, someone bless these seeds I sow."  (The Garden Song, David Mallett) Today the landscape of Seattle is dotted with tiny gardens called P-patches, as well as several larger urban farms and orchards. Rainier Valley is no exception; a number of vacant lots and underutilized spaces have been converted to meet the growing desire for freshly-grown produce and the need for food security. Some of these spaces are dedicated to the newer groups of immigrants and refugees who have settled in the valley. The City of Seattle, through its P-patch program, and the Seattle Housing Authority have made concerted efforts to provide gardening space for newcomers. Many of these families come from farming backgrounds and a space to plant and harvest familiar foods is a way to ease the transition to their new home.  Rainier Valley also boasts a demonstration orchard in Hillman City, as well as the Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetland, developed on the site of the city’s ol...