Arts-A-Glow! This Saturday

Looking for something fun to do this Saturday?

Interesting Reading...

The following is an excerpt from most excellent Article: Growing Communiy Gardens in Cities, left on our facebook page, by someone over at Burien Parks and Recreation!

P-Patch, which began in 1973 and was named after Rainie Picardo, the farmer who first allowed residents to begin gardening on his land, once even counted as a gardening member Mayor Wes Ulhman. Today P-Patch has sixty-eight gardens, an annual budget of $650,000 and a staff of six, and Seattle has more garden plots per capita than any other major city. Even more impressive, Seattle’s City Council passed a formal resolution supporting community gardens and recommending their co-location on other city-owned property. The city’s comprehensive plan calls for a standard of one garden for every 2,000 households in high-density neighborhoods (known in Seattle as “urban villages”). Nevertheless, despite this abundance, P-Patch still has a waiting list of 1,900 persons; in crowded neighborhoods that translates to three to four years.

Read more here

B-Patch Gardeners Day

(Click on flyer to enlarge)

White Center Heights Community Garden

Did you know that the B-Patch is not the first community garden in the area? If you travel just a bit into White Center, you can find the White Center Heights Community Garden.
The White Center Heights Community Garden, is located at SW 102nd St and 7th Ave SW , in White Center and run by the White Center Community Food Bank
From their listing on the American Community Garden Association website :

"The White Center Heights Community Garden consists of 17 3'x7' raised beds and is located within the recently made over White Center Heights Park. The garden is free to participate in, strictly organic, utilizes a water cistern, and has compost bins on-site. In fact, due to the economic challenges many in the White Center community face, we have solicited donations for organic fertilizer and plants for our gardeners and neighborhood businesses have generously responded.
If you are interested in gardening with us, please contact Audrey Zemke at the White Center Food Bank for an application."

We Got MAIL!!!

Just wanted to share an email from Michael Lafreniere, Department Director
City of Burien Parks, Recreation & Cultural Services to the email box, which I diligently check- NOT! Thank you Michael, sorry it took so long to read your email!

Michael wrote:
Just wanted to pass along a website and an initiative I recently learned about:

http://www.growlocaltacomapierce.com/

In Tacoma-Pierce County, the Cascade Land Conservancy is working to help organize community gardens at several new locations around Tacoma due to pent up demand. More on that HERE.

History of School Gardens

Kitchen Gardeners International had an interesting post on School Gardens. A good read to learn a little history of the Victory Garden movement in general. Maybe an idea whose time is right again!

Community Gardeners Get to keep their plots

Michael, Rebecca, Wayne and Carol were able to attend the Parks Board meeting on September 8. Just want to pass along the great news that they unanimously decided to go with our recommendation to remove the one year plot term. Current gardeners (and future gardeners) will now be able to keep their plot as long as they wish, assuming they reapply each year, pay the $25 fee, volunteer their 8 hours and follow other garden rules. If there are more gardeners than plots a waiting list will be formed and gardeners will be assigned plots on a first come, first serve basis.

The Parks Board members' biggest concern with going to the unlimited plot term model was not having enough plots to make the resource available to everyone in the community. There seemed to be interest in building more community gardens if the demand is there (a wait list on the B-Patch), but funding is the primary issue that will need to be addressed.

A few highlights of our first few months at the garden

A few highlights of our first few months at the garden:

· 90 pounds of produce donated to the Highline and White Center food banks

·Gardener and community potluck was held on 8/29 which included garden demos, delicious food prepared with produce grown at the garden and over 40 people!

·Developed a B-Patch blog called the Bee Patch Blog to share recipes, garden announcements and work party information - http://beepatch.blogspot.com/

·The B-Patch is on Facebook

·Working with Sustainable Burien to help finish some of the final projects in the garden’s construction

·Learning 101 ways to cook zucchini, and trying to find more things to do with all the green tomatoes!

·Featured on the Photo Friday of the B-Town Blog

·The Mayor of Burien recently toured the garden

1st B-Patch Garden Day

In concordance with World Kitchen Garden Day, We had a succesful B-Patch Garden Day with over 40 local gardeners attending. Starting with a potluck full of dishes inspired by what we grow. Followed by demo's on all sorts of garden related topics like food preservation, composting, chicken keeping, making mason bee houses and ladybug houses. prepping your garden for winter; winter gardening and much more.
Moreover it was an oppurtunity to meet and discuss our gardens and to plant friendships and prep as a community, sharing ideas along the way.

Sustainable Burien meeting at The B-Patch

The good folks at Sustainable Burien want everyone to know that their next meeting, set for this Sunday, Aug. 8th, is being moved from the usual spot at the new library to Burien’s Community Gardens, located at 437 SW 144th Street. The meeting is Sunday, Aug. 8th from 2pm to 4pm; doors open at 1:30pm. 2pm until 4pm

This will be a chance to visit the new community garden and attend SuBu's monthly meeting.

Their speaker will be Jeanne Johnson from the Environmental Coalition of South Seattle, and according to an email:

“She’ll have free green cleaning products to give away to everyone. She’ll explain how to read the labels on cleaning products and other chemicals so you know what’s really in them and can make an educated choice about what works for you. She’ll have information about how you can take care of your home using green products; cheaply, easily and effectively. She has some surprising information about what personal care products are actually classified as hazardous waste, and will have information about how to research the products you use and find alternatives if you want to. And she’ll have copies of the Grow Safe/Grow Green Guide for yard and garden care, an excellent guide that lists various products and explains what they are, how safe they are [or aren't] and helps you pick what will work best for you.”

Kitchen Garden Day- August 22

Did you know that world's producers of chips, pretzels and fluorescent orange cheese doodles have rebranded February as "Snack Food Month?"
Well, the world's food gardeners and other healthy, delicious eaters are biting back. If they can claim a month, we can at least have a day: Kitchen Garden Day! And it will be celebrated on August 22 this year! Facebook users can show their support and solidarity with food gardeners and other healthy eaters around the world by "attending" our global event here: Kitchen Garden Day on facebook
Some Ideas to celebrate Kitchen Garden Day are:
-a walking tour of gardens in your area
-a kitchen garden or local agriculture potluck
-a kitchen garden taste-test
-a harvest or planting party
-a benefit for a local food/gardening charity
-a kitchen garden "teach in"
-a single food theme party
-an activity at a local farm
-etc

Steve Roemer talks about the community garden