Winter pickings are slim but there are a few things popping up at the Thomas Street Gardens P-Patch this winter
If you’re not already on the list, by the time you can join one, Seattle’s p-patch community garden program will probably be celebrating its 52nd or 53rd anniversary. But impatiently giving up on hope that your turn to be part of a public neighborhood garden will ever come is a Seattle rite of passage. The gardens, meanwhile, add beautiful pockets of growth and color around the city. And your countertop mushroom farm is pretty cool, anyhow.
2023 marks 50 years of the p-patch program and the City Council and Mayor Bruce Harrell have proclaimed it the Year of Community Gardening in Seattle: Continue reading →
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The Cass Turnbull Garden already calls the property home. How it fits into the plans for the future park will be part of the process (Image: Cass Turnbull Garden)
There was a time when we thought Broadway Hill Park would be the last of its kind — 12,000 square feet of grass, benches, community gardening space, and a BBQ grill in the middle of Capitol Hill.
There is another.
The Seattle Parks department has started the public planning process to reshape the 1.6 acre property left to the city by philanthropist Kay Bullitt at her 2021 death as a new city park. A survey has been launched and public meetings are coming.
The path to create the park will not be straight. The city must now navigate the “unique opportunity” to transform a private Capitol Hill yard already promised and in use as a community garden space into a public park serving communities far beyond Capitol Hill’s northern mansions and the overgrown greenbelt surrounding St. Mark’s Cathedral. Landmarks considerations and the city’s ongoing homelessness crisis and recent park sweeps will also shape the conversation.
Given the importance of the land at Harvard Ave E at E Prospect on the northeast slopes of Capitol Hill above I-5, it might not be surprising there is already a vision for its place in the community. Continue reading →
Daniel and Ben worked together to build the Woodland Path in Streissguth Gardens in 1974. (Image: Streissguth Gardens)
By Lily Hansen, UW News Lab/Special to CHS
On a steep hillside just off Broadway sits just over an acre of cultivated woodlands. Home to Seattleâs third-longest stairway, the Blaine Street Steps, with views overlooking Lake Union and the Olympic Mountains, the idyllic gardens are the 48-year product of one dedicated family: the Streissguths.
Its patriarch, Daniel Streissguth, created the garden in 1962 after purchasing a plot of land and constructed a four-story house just north of the staircase. In 1965, Ann Roth Pytkowicz moved into the house next door and began cultivating her own hillside garden.
Bonding over their shared appreciation for gardening, Daniel and Ann fell in love. They married in 1968, and welcomed a son, BenStreissguth, in 1970. Together, the family of three built, expanded, and maintained the Capitol Hill oasis known as Streissguth Gardens.
On November 21, Daniel died peacefully at his home of natural causes. He was 96.
In honor of his fatherâs memory, Ben is remembering Daniel for the loving husband, skilled architect, avid gardener, and community socialite he was. With the help of his fiancee and Streissguth Gardens assistant director Jade Takashima, the two are working to ensure that the green space is maintained for generations to come.
In 1972, Daniel and Ann purchased two hillside lots across the Blaine stairs, looking to beautify the land and expand their garden. Although Ben was only two at the time, he has vivid memories of working with his parents in the newly acquired land.
âSome of my earliest memories are of playing in whatâs now called the public garden,â he said. âAnd realizing, even back then, that the soil that we were working with was really horrible. I donât know how my parents managed to make [gardening] fun for me, but they did. And Iâm so grateful to them for that.â Continue reading →
The latest discussion in the Capitol Hill Seattle Facebook Group brings together many themes familiar to readers of CHS — public space, parks and p-patches, homelessness… and dogs.
Kim posted this image of the E Olive Way at Summit at Denny Pac-Man pocket park and raises a valid issue — what use is a pocket park if nobody uses it? “I pass this sad scene every day and have never seen anything suggestive of added value going on there,” she writes. “Would make a great pea patch or dog park with a little investment.” Continue reading →
It has been an abnormally rainy start to spring for Seattle with rainfall more than double your typical wet and dreary Pacific Northwest March. You can learn how to put that extra rainfall to work for flowers and plants at a Meet-a-RainWise Contractor Fair coming up in April at Madison Valley’s City People’s:
We found this “RainWise” garden in motion along 19th Ave E. The joint city and county program helps take some of the burden off its taxed sewer system by providing rebates that cover “most or all” of the cost of installing cisterns and rain gardens. “To receive a rebate, you must live in an eligible combined sewer overflow basin,” reads the fine print. You can learn more here.
New owners have got the garden store looking good again (Image: City People’s)
Meanwhile, we reported here on the interim rebirth of City People’s following delays of the mixed-use grocery and apartments project being planned to replace the garden store. Meet the new owners Alison Greene and Jose Gonzales:
Longtime employees Alison and Jose are the new owners of City Peopleâs Garden Store. Jose has been working at the Garden Store since 1998 as the Annuals Buyer, and Alison started in 2003 becoming a Manager and the Tree & Shrub Buyer. The two worked closely with former owners Steve Magley and Dianne Casper to move the business forward.
Alleluia! Work on the Same Love Garden at All Pilgrims Christian Church should be moving forward soon.
Pastor Greg Turk said he hoped to finalize paperwork with the city and set construction dates any day now.
âIf thatâs the case, then they can start breaking ground soon,â he said. If the weather cooperates, that could happen sometime this month. The project is expected to take about two weeks to complete Continue reading →
As construction reaches the fourth floor, the group is launching a crowdfunding campaign to create a rooftop garden for the project as a community exhibition of hyperlocal farming involving Seattle Central Community Collegeâs Sustainable Agriculture program:
Through outreach and partnership, it is our goal to use this farm to benefit our surrounding community as much as possible. We expect the programs we set up to evolve and expand as the farm becomes more established. In our first year the farm will be managed by volunteers and interns from Seattle Central Community Collegeâs Sustainable Agriculture program. We plan to lead free monthly tours for the public, and education workshops for children. We also plan to have an outreach stand at the Capitol Hill Farmers Market in order to share our project with the larger community. We will sell a portion of our organic produce to neighboring restaurant, Lark, in order to cover the cost of operating year-round. We will also donate produce to neighboring food banks or meal programs. We will establish and nourish partnerships with other interested restaurants and organization in our community.
The Rooftop Farm will serve the building’s residents but they are hoping with community support to make the project into a larger vision. “As one of Seattleâs fastest-growing and most densely populated neighborhoods, Capitol Hill provides a unique opportunity for us to grow together through urban farming expansion, awareness and education,” they write. “The intent of our farm in the city is to educate local children, and the general public, about the benefits of hyper-local food production, to demonstrate what a successful year-round organic rooftop farm looks like, and to act as a catalyst for the creation of a Capitol Hill food networkâone which will connect neighbors, local restaurants, and local organizations around local food production.”
The goal is $10,000. As of Friday morning, nearly $4,000 has been raised.
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