Seattle’s P-Patch program celebrates 50 years of community gardening
1973: First P-Patch established in Wedgwood
By Daisy Zavala Magaña
Seattle Times
March 11, 2023
Excerpt:
One of the nation’s foremost community gardening programs wouldn’t exist if not for a neighborly ask some 53 years ago. University of Washington student Darlyn Rundberg acted on her inspiration for a small garden near her Wedgwood home, asking her neighbors if they could spare a corner of their small truck farm, which sold produce in the area.
The Picardo family obliged, and Rundberg got to work, planting beans, broccoli, corn and cabbage with help from students and families at an elementary school bordering the Picardos’ property. Her idea took off, and the Picardos leased the rest of their farmland to other gardeners seeking space within the city limits — eventually selling their land to the city as the national “back to the earth” movement picked up steam after the 1970 declaration of Earth Day.
Seattle officially designated the Picardos’ land as the city’s first community garden in 1973, naming the new P-Patch program after the family of Italian immigrants. The early years were rocky, seeing some gardens plowed over or lost to development projects as other social service programs took priority and city funding fluctuated.
But an advisory council founded in 1979 helped provide stability, and the P-Patch program took off over the ensuing years, growing to dozens of gardens by the late 1990s.
