West Seattle, Washington
10 Friday
Two reports of vandalism in West Seattle Crime Watch today, including one at a P-Patch that trashed not just gardeners’ hard work, but also crops destined to feed local food-bank clients. From Tiffany, who shared the photo:
I’m writing to let you know that the West Genesee P-Patch (SW Genesee & 42nd Ave SW) was vandalized last night. It happened sometime between 7pm last night and 9am this morning. The vandals overturned our picnic table, threw one of the benches in one of the plots, uprooted plants and tomato cages, and smashed plants. There wasn’t a single plot that escaped damage, though some suffered more than others. We all finally had nice gardens going after a slow start to summer, so needless to say, we’re pretty bummed out. Most disappointing though, is the damage they did to our food bank plot. The vandals completely destroyed all our squash plants, broccoli, and some of the kale and we won’t be able to save those. We will all be salvaging as much of the destroyed plants as we can however, from both our food bank plot and our own plots, and donating it to the food bank so it won’t go to waste.
The silver lining here is that the damage was confined to plants and we won’t have to replace any of the structures. Also, many of the uprooted plants will survive if we can all get them back into the ground soon. It just stinks because we all work hard on our gardens and are happy to be a part of a community garden that brightens up the neighborhood and helps provide fresh food for those in need (so many great comments from people walking by to the Summerfest this weekend!). It’s a blow to have someone come in and try to ruin that.
Anyway, I hope you can post this information on the blog and ask people in the area keep an eye out to help us prevent this from happening again. For now we’ll do our best to get our garden back in shape!
Another vandalism case not far away, after the jump:Read More
Cheap, organic, fresh vegetables – as fresh as if you picked them yourself – are on sale right now at the summer’s first weekly High Point Market Garden Farm Stand shopping availability (32nd/Juneau, till 7 pm). The veggies are grown feet away:
Just park on Juneau – if you’re not walking, biking, busing – and look for the stand’s canopy:
Besides what you see in our top photo, they also have various greens including lettuce, plus peas, carrots, and potatoes. And if you miss it today, they’re open again every Wednesday TFN, 4-7 pm.
(March 2011 photo of Village Green’s Vera Johnson during West Seattle for Japan fundraiser)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Driving to Village Green Perennial Nursery from the south edge of West Seattle, there’s a yellow sign about a block before you get there, pointing to a property involved in a foreclosure auction.
Village Green owner Vera Johnson is fighting tooth and nail to keep a sign like that from appearing outside the 26th Avenue SW site where she has lived, worked, and organized community events for eight years.
Vera took her struggle public a few nights ago, by launching an online petition at change.org and asking for support. But this is not a tale of “woe is me, somebody save me.” This is a tale of an entrepreneur who is also a longtime community advocate, and with those instincts, trying to make sure her battle yields help and support for the many others she is learning are going through the same thing.
It is also a tale of fighting against a big bank that she says has frustrated and complicated her attempts to do the right thing and get her loan “modified” while she struggles to get on her feet after a life change that suddenly slashed her household income.
(WSB photo from July 2010)
In case you haven’t already seen it in the WSB West Seattle Events calendar – the city just sent a reminder that the High Point Market Garden Farm Stand opens for the season tomorrow afternoon. Every Wednesday through September, you can buy fresh produce there – grown and picked just feet away – from 4 till 7 pm. According to the city Department of Neighborhoods‘ announcement, what’s fresh right now includes “spinach, carrots, leafy greens, new onions, peas, turnips, and radishes.” The High Point stand is at 32nd and Juneau (map) – be sure to peek through the fence at the beautiful mini-farm/garden while you’re there.
Story and photos by Ellen Cedergreen
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
This is a month to celebrate gardens and gardeners – with the West Seattle Garden Tour (co-sponsored by WSB) next Sunday, and two tours with West Seattle stops this past Saturday, including the grand-opening celebration for the Community Orchard of West Seattle on the north side of the South Seattle Community College campus on Puget Ridge.
First, we take you to a stop along the Seattle Tilth-sponsored Chicken Coop and Urban Farm Tour, which was citywide, but with some West Seattle stops, including author Lyanda Lynn Haupt‘s Gatewood home.
They use a byproduct from roasting coffee beans called “chaff.” It looks like hamster bedding and is nitrogen-rich, making it a good material for composting. As a bonus, it can be acquired free from local coffee roasters – just inquire with your favorites. Lyanda took visitors into the coop, where she picked up her chickens, allowing visitors to touch them.
From left to right: Adelade, Ethel, and Ophelia. Ethen is a Barred Rock; the other two are Buff Oringtons, a favorite breed of Lyanda’s. She says she’ll get an egg a day from each when they start laying, which should happen shortly. Also at her stop, visitors examined a coldframe in the yard.
Saturday’s other major tour was the Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle-presented Edible Garden Tour.
(Photo courtesy Kate Farley)
From back when it was just an idea for what to do with a big empty city-owned lot, through Parks and Green Spaces Levy funding, community meetings, and now, volunteer-powered site work, the birth of the Barton Street P-Patch (34th/Barton) has charged forward. Of all the work parties they’ve had, this weekend is among the most pivotal – they’re starting to “form the web” that makes up the garden design, and they need labor help the next two weekends – including anyone with construction skills -as well as donated materials, and some tools (all the way up to a cement mixer – they have one, and need one more) – read on for details:Read More
Suddenly, it’s July, and all the big summer events are in view. Two weeks from today, you can spend the day wandering the 10 gardens on this year’s West Seattle Garden Tour 
on your own schedule between 9 am-5 pm, and learning perennial-design secrets from this year’s guest speaker Sue Goetz (that’s the one event with a fixed time – noon at West Seattle Golf Course). Ticket books are $15 (kids 12/under = free), and they’re more than just your ticket to get into the gardens and lecture on July 17th – they contain maps and information, plus coupons from some of the sponsors (totaling savings, by our informal estimation, that could exceed the $15 price). The WS Garden Tour is a fundraiser with multiple beneficiaries (listed here). WSB is proud to be a WS Garden Tour sponsor again this year (with many others, including these businesses that are also WSB sponsors: Budget Blinds of West Seattle, Highline Medical Group/West Seattle Family Medicine, Jackson, Morgan & Hunt PLLC, Stonehedge Tree Experts, Tom’s Automotive Service, WEdesign, Ventana Construction). You can buy your ticket book today at the locations listed here, or online. (Photo of “Sculptural Greens Garden” by Clay Swidler, from WSGT website)
For more than a quarter-century, Windermere Real Estate agents and other staffers have taken a day off work each year – independent of whatever volunteering they do in their private lives – to work on neighborhood-improvement projects during their Community Service Day. Today was the day for a project in West Seattle, and the sun graced the 40-plus people working at Greg Davis and Cottage Grove parks in North Delridge – mulching, weeding, and planting.
The two-park work party was a joint project of Windermere’s two West Seattle offices. They raised money to donate more than 50 new plants you’ll see next time you visit the parks (here’s a map).
(Photo by Laura Sweany)
The Community Orchard of West Seattle continues taking shape on the north side of the South Seattle Community College campus, and just marked a milestone, according to this report from Patrick Dunn (who’s in the photo above with fellow orchard Steering Committee member Narcissa Nelson):
I’m pleased to report that The Community Orchard of West Seattle delivered its first small harvest of spinach and lettuce to The West Seattle Food Bank (Wednesday) for (that evening’s) distribution. As our newly planted orchard comes of age, this will be the first of many future produce donations to support local food security programs.
Since The Community Orchard broke ground in January at South Seattle Community College, hundreds of neighbors have joined in to sheet mulch the plot, build pathways and trellises, and plant a vast array of edibles. In the process, those neighbors have not only improved the future of our local food security but they’ve also formed a great Orchard community that’s growing right along with the plants.
And we hope to continue meeting more our neighbors through our monthly work parties, socials, and free classes. Next month’s free class on July 16th will be “Tracking Critters in the Urban Garden,” taught by local tracker Pete McGlenn. For more information, please visit: fruitinwestseattle.org
The land’s secured, the design’s finished, the ground’s broken – but there’s work to do to transform the Barton/34th parcel into a real P-Patch. Some stalwart volunteers have been out there every weekend – they can’t do it alone, so they’re asking for help:
Everyone is invited to participate in the building of this community garden. Work Parties are planned for Saturdays (9:30- 3 pm) and Sundays (11-3 pm) throughout the summer.
Upcoming work parties will focus on moving sod, spreading manure, gravel and wood chips, protecting the area around the tree, building a shed kit, retaining walls and curbs, providing refreshments and handing out informational materials regarding the P-Patch program. In addition to general labor, we are seeking volunteers with advanced building and masonry skills to help with specific projects.
Please contact Steering Committee Chair Randee Frost at RandeeF@comcast.net if you
would like to schedule a group to work on a specific day or project.
Or – you can just show up, this weekend and/or any weekend.
Today we welcome a new sponsor, Douglas Sutherland, who owns Sutherland Creative Landscape Design. Here’s what he wants you to know about his business: Douglas brings his skills as a graphic designer to each landscape project he takes on, as he says, “Unlike many designers today — I can actually draw, and I will create a custom, hand-drawn landscape design for you. I prefer to work with the contours of your yard and its existing trees and shrubs. 
As much as possible, I like to use what already exists on the property. By designing in this manner, I can keep the installation costs down. I find it amazing how the aesthetics of your yard can be improved just by manipulating what you already have.”
He adds that Sutherland Creative Landscape Design clients trust him and the passion he brings to his work: “My last client told me ‘I just love what you did with my ‘Plain Jane’ yard, I like coming home and just looking at it!’ I have seen it happen many times — once people see their ‘yards’ turned into gardens, they take more pride in them. They want to be in their garden more and tend to spend more time outdoors enjoying it. It gives them a good feeling when they see it from their windows, when they walk through it or relax in it. That investment is something they can enjoy now and something more tangible when they decide to sell their home, because a nice yard is the first thing a potential buyer sees.”
Douglas is a West Seattle resident and a student at South Seattle Community College. He’s a member of Plant Amnesty and the APLD, Association of Professional Landscape Designers. You can reach him through sutherlandcreative.net or at 206-550-5501.
We thank Sutherland Creative Landscape Design for sponsoring independent, community-collaborative neighborhood news on WSB; find our current sponsor team listed in directory format here, and find info on joining the team by going here.
The summer’s biggest events are approaching fast – among them, the West Seattle Garden Tour, 9 am-5 pm on Sunday, July 17th, with a milestone today: Tickets are now about to go on sale, now that ticket books have just arrived at West Seattle Nursery, and the rest to be available at all designated outlets by this weekend, according to Jane Watson from the WSGT:
The WS ticket outlets are: Junction True Value, West Seattle Nursery, ArtsWest, Metropolitan Market and Village Green Perennial Nursery.
We hope to sell a record number of tickets this year to support our 2011 beneficiaries (Seattle Chinese Garden, Walking on Logs Landscape Restoration Group, West Seattle Tool Library, Nantes Park, Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center, Nature Consortium, Lincoln Park P-Patch, and ArtsWest).
This year’s featured gardens are previewed here (minus addresses). Tickets are $15 and include Sue Goetz’s noon lecture on perennials, at the West Seattle Golf Course. (WSB is proud to be co-sponsoring the WS Garden Tour again this year!)
As listed in our “West Seattle Sunday” daily preview, lots going on today in addition 
to the events on Alki; we stopped by one inbetween events at the beach. Furry Faces Foundation is in the second day of the first weekend of its annual series of fundraising plant sales at 3809 46th SW (just south of Charlestown), and today, you can also go home with Ed the dog, shown above with Rebecca from King County Animal Services. She also brought along a nameless 3-week-old stray kitten, shown at right – not to adopt (yet) but to remind everyone of the importance of volunteers who foster abandoned kittens and other pets that shelters may not be able to care for. Oops, almost forgot about the plants – there are some available for as little as 50 cents; there are veggies, flowers, natives, herbs, sun, shade, hundreds available:
Sale is on till 4 pm.
With their numerous appearances in local parades – usually including the West Seattle American Legion Post 160 Grand Parade (July 23rd this year!) – the Seattle Chinese Community Girls’ Drill Team is, quite simply, famous. This afternoon, during a welcome break in the rain, they performed at a snug but perfect venue: The new Welcoming the Spring Courtyard at the Seattle Chinese Garden, atop West Seattle’s Puget Ridge on the north end of the South Seattle Community College campus.
For 10 minutes – all shown in our unedited video – they performed their precision routines in their shimmering traditional costumes, in much-closer quarters than the usual parade route provides, yet without missing a beat (of the drum). The drill team’s appearance concluded two hours of performances and demonstrations welcoming the public to the ever-growing Chinese Garden. Other events are planned this spring, as you can see on the garden calendar here, which also lists its regular spring hours, Wednesdays-Sundays (admission is free to Seattle residents). You can also catch up on behind-the-scenes garden happenings here.
Thanks to the Barton Street P-Patch team for sharing photos from Saturday morning’s groundbreaking/volunteer-signup event. They celebrated the placement of a marker for the “web” design chosen for the 34th/Barton garden site after three community meetings, but need one thing to proceed:
We are looking to borrow a sports field marker to mark the P-Patch pathways prior so we can begin sod removal … anyone with a lead on a sports field marker is requested to e-mail construction coordinator Kate Farley at kfarleylandscapedesign@gmail.com. We would like to mark the pathways sometime this upcoming week, weather permitting
The city’s webpage for the project is here; on Facebook, there’s a Barton Street P-Patch group here.
There’s a fence around the big birch tree to protect it as work is about to begin to turn the big lot at 34th/Barton into West Seattle’s next P-Patch community-gardening area. After months of planning and preparation, the official “groundbreaking” is tomorrow – albeit a low-key one; the landscaping consultant will install “the official web marking post” at 9:30 am. That’s a reference to the final design chosen for the site after 3 community meetings – WSB coverage here – which resembles a web.
(Courtesy Barker Landscape Architects)
You’re invited to come celebrate and to sign up for work parties; sign-up sheets are available 9 am-11 am, and garden plots will be assigned “based on volunteer hours,” so if you want a garden, you’ll have to work for it! The city’s webpage for the project is here; on Facebook, there’s a Barton Street P-Patch group here. The project is funded through the Parks and Green Spaces Levy.
One day last week in the rain, we caught up with Kerrie, Janet and Karen at the Genesee-Schmitz Neighborhood Garden. It’s in its first season growing on the grounds of the shuttered Genesee Hill Elementary School, where there were gardens when Pathfinder K-8 used the campus.
It’s part of an ongoing effort by the Genesee-Schmitz Neighborhood Council to make sure the vacant school doesn’t fall into disrepair; they’ve also arranged for art on the side of some of the buildings, to discourage vandalism. Individual gardeners have signed up for plots but they still need overall volunteer help for the first gardening event of the season – not just in the beds, but also in other areas. So just show up on the north side of the playground at 51st and Dakota, 9 am-1 pm tomorrow. Help tend the beds, distribute wood chips, and pull ivy. Seattle Public Schools (which continues to hold the property for potential future use) is providing tools, gloves, and a “weed wrench.” (GSNC acknowledges donations including wood chips from Seattle Tree Preservation, Zoo-Doo from Woodland Park Zoo, and art murals from Van Asselt Elementary.)
A brand-new, yet old-fashioned tradition sprouted at Village Green Perennial Nursery today – proprietor Vera Johnson (left) co-hosted the first-ever Mother’s Day Pie Social with pie goddess Kate McDermott. Everyone was supposed to bring a freshly homemade pie – and the resulting bounty (both savory and sweet) even had a guard:
(Yes, that’s the symbol “pi” after “I (Heart)” around the neck of “the guard.”) And apropos to the occasion, Vera got to beam with motherly pride as daughter Johanna serenaded guests with harp music:
Besides being a unique way to celebrate Mother’s Day – and homemade treats – the occasion was also a benefit for the White Center Food Bank, whose executive director Rick Jump was on hand when we stopped by in the early going.
(Photo courtesy Seattle Chinese Garden)
Been to the Seattle Chinese Garden yet? It’s on West Seattle’s Puget Ridge and ready to greet you at an open-house celebration one week from today. From the official announcement:
The Seattle Chinese Garden will host a free public open house to celebrate the completion of the garden’s first courtyard, named Knowing the Spring. Yueming Ling, vice mayor of Seattle’s sister city Chongqing , along with Seattle city officials, will attend the May 15 festivities. A lion dance will open the celebration, which includes martial arts and traditional Chinese dance performances, painting and calligraphy demonstrations. …
Knowing the Spring Courtyard was designed by architects in Chongqing, located in southwest China, and built in collaboration with Chinese artisans, local architects and contractors. The Seattle Chinese Garden, when complete, will be one of the largest Chinese gardens outside China, and the first in the United States to be designed in authentic Sichuan style. …
The Seattle Chinese Garden is located at the north end of the South Seattle Community College campus at 6000 16th Avenue SW, in West Seattle. The Open House is May 15, 2011, from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free, but donations are greatly appreciated.
At West Seattle Montessori/West Seattle Academy (WSB sponsor), the halls are lined with plants and gift items for today’s annual sale – and it’s not just a shopping opportunity; edible-gardening expert and author Amy Pennington will be there at 2 pm, and a few seats were left when we checked. Angela, Delores and Dakota already have her books on hand (“Urban Pantry” and “Apartment Gardening”):
The sale continues till 3 at 11215 15th SW; WSMS says Village Green Perennial Nursery donated plants too and wants to send out a hearty thanks for that.
Meantime, a Relay for Life-West Seattle team has a fundraising plant sale under way at Ginomai (SW corner of 42nd/Genesee) in The Junction – look for the sign-waving at Genesee/California and head east:
Besides plants, they’re selling luminarias for the moving ceremony during the June 10th-11th all-night American Cancer Society fundraiser, as well as birdhouses big and small.
The sale’s under way till 4; Relay for Life is June 10-11.
(Photo by Amy Converse)
Since this day got off to an unusual start with two breaking stories (which will be updated as the day goes on with any new information that’s available), we’ll be reminding you about the day’s notable events one-by-one rather than the usual roundup. First: The South Seattle Community College Garden Center opens today, and shared this announcement:
The Puget Ridge Garden Center at South Seattle Community College’s spring opening is (today) (May 5th) from 11am – 3pm. Hurry in for a great selection of perennials, edibles, annuals, trees, shrubs, and more! The Garden Center is a hands-on teaching facility for students of SSCC’s Landscape Horticulture (LHO) program and all sale proceeds help support the program. We’ll also be open May 7th, 19th, and 21st, plus June 2nd and 4th (all 11am – 3pm). You can also like us on Facebook (here)
or follow us on our blog at pugetridge.blogspot.com.
Ah, springtime. The time to clean up the yard, with the mower … the weed-whacker … the hand tools … and/or … the goats! Robin in Fauntlee Hills sent word that he was bringing in the munching machines, through a goatkeeper with Amazin’ Grazers, which is affiliated with Rent-a-Ruminant, but offers smaller-scale goat services. They arrived at midday and got down to work on Robin’s overgrowth. We’re sorry to say you can’t really see them from the street – and given the electric fencing (note the sign in our photo), you’re not going to want to wander around looking, either.
“We got the sun we ordered!” exulted Dolly Vinal of the West Seattle Wildlife Habitat Project when we saw her a little while ago as a Duwamish Alive! work party began at the project’s Seacrest Park demonstration garden. She is also thrilled about the turnout – more than a dozen people already were digging into the waterfront garden, which Dolly says just mostly needs post-winter cleanup, though they also have received “some great native plants” from Seattle Parks. This is one of a dozen-plus locations, from West Seattle to South Park to Tukwila, where you’ll find volunteers working on our area’s precious greenspaces over the next few hours; one of them is T-107 Park on the river itself, where a dedication ceremony at 1 pm will spotlight new features including an interpretive sign. And at 2 pm, an Earth Day festival at Pathfinder K-8 on Pigeon Point follows the work parties. More to come!
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