2023 marks 50 years of the P-Patch program in Seattle
City Council and Mayor Bruce Harrell have proclaimed it the Year of Community Gardening in Seattle
Capitol Hill Seattle Blog
Feb 10, 2023
Excerpt:
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:
The P-Patch Community Gardening Program was officially started in 1973, but the program grew out of a larger movement focused on growing food for community and those in need. The name “P-Patch” commemorates the Picardo family who operated a truck farm in the Wedgwood area in the early twentieth century. Darlyn Rundberg, a neighbor of the Picardos, was inspired to start a community garden as part of the first Earth Day celebration. She asked the family if she could use a corner of their property as a community garden to grow food for people affected by the economic downturn. They agreed and, during the first two years, Puget Consumers Co-op (now PCC Community Markets) managed the community garden.
The city says its P-Patch Community Gardening Program managed by the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods is “the largest municipally managed community gardening program west of New York.”
Seattle’s community gardeners grow food, flowers, and herbs on 15 acres of land across the city and provide stewardship for an additional 35 acres. All p-patch gardens are open to the public to enjoy and are utilized “as restorative spaces, learning and idea incubators, and venues for community gatherings.”
