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-...

"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...

"The old garden was really fun. It was the first time I'd ever actually had enough room to really grow vegetables. A lot of my neighbors had plots over there. I would be cooking dinner or something and if I wanted something from the garden, I'd start the water, run over, pick it, bring it back, and pop it in!" (Leslye Coe) Part I: Sand Point In an earlier post , we described the loss of a P-Patch on 27th Avenue NE near Eckstein Middle School. Some of the gardeners from 27th Avenue were able to acquire plots at the Sand Point P-Patch approximately two miles east along Sand Point Way. This property, too, fell to development, in 2001, making way for a new facility for Seattle Children’s Hospital, the owner of the land. However, unlike some gardens mentioned here, the Sand Point P-Patch did not die, but was moved wholesale across the street to Magnuson Park. Farming Tradition on the Sand Point Peninsula From the early 1900s small farms could be found dotting the Sand Poin...

Victory Garden at Seattle Children's Home, 1944. Courtesy MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Photograph Collection, 1986.5.7817.3, photo by Ed Watton. From victory gardens to p-patches, Seattle has a long history of community gardening. A straight line links the victory gardens of old with the p-patches, community gardens, and pandemic gardens of today. In particular the idea of vacant land as an untapped resource continues, although such unused plots are harder to find today than they once were. During World War II a cooperative “Victory Garden” was developed in the heart of Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood, not far from today’s Ravenna Community Center. According to a piece in The Seattle Times , the garden was “serving seven families for a cost of only $3.58 each.” What that amount represented or how it was calculated is not stated. Victory Gardens abounded around the Seattle area, as they did throughout a nation at war. Framed as a way of easing the strain on the country’s agricu...

"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...