A long wait for Seattle P-patches
Demand is greater than ever for a 10-by-10-foot urban farm. City officials say 1,650 people are waiting for a plot at one of 54 gardens.
A heightened desire to commune with nature, a need to get your hands dirty, exercise, saving money. All help explain the keen pursuit by a larger-than-ever segment of Seattle to lease a piece of land to produce veggies, grow flowers, and otherwise work the earth.
Figures released this month by the city's Department of Neighborhoods show there are 1,650 people signed up for a P-patch plot. That's up by more than 600 people from 2006, and up 400 from just last fall.
Viewed as a series of queues for specific gardens, the line is even longer — 2,559 — because each person may submit up to three requests to snag a plot around town. The city currently maintains 54 gardens, with a total of roughly 2,500 plots.
Unsurprisingly, the longest waits are in the densest parts, such as Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, and Ballard.
P-patch program manager Rich Macdonald said he knew this year was different when, at the start of the season, he noticed that "even sites that are often not full at the beginning of the year (were) this year."
The P-patch program's Web site needs updating. For example, it shows the wait at the Queen Anne patch at 60.The truth: 118, almost double. Thomas Street, on Capitol Hill, is listed at 75. Reality: 135. And Ballard shows 37, but the real number is 100, according to more recent data provided by the city.
Demand in the most coveted areas translates to a wait of "at least two years," Macdonald said. He noted that existing gardeners who move from one neighborhood to another are grandfathered and receive priority placement for a garden nearer their new residence.
As recently reported in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, some people are so eager to farm in the city that they've tried to turn public parking strips into gardens, which could require legislation to be legal.
The smallest P-patch plot available, 10 feet square, leases for $34 a year. The city supplies water and tools. In addition to tending their individual plots, gardeners are obliged to volunteer eight hours for the common good, which typically involves weeding public pathways and common areas.
Macdonald can't say definitively why interest is peaking. But he has a few theories, including the state of the economy and more expensive food prices.
Also contributing to the clamor may be increased media focus on the food system, "eating local and raising people's awareness of where food comes from, and taking more control over it," he said.
Ray Schutte, president of the P-Patch Trust, a non-profit group that supports community gardens and leases land for patches back to the city at the rate of a buck a year, echoes that assessment.
"Overall," he said, "there's a great deal of booming interest in quality of food and understanding of all that. Couple that with the fact that we're not growing land to garden on as fast as we're growing people. So demand is just going up all across the town."
Macdonald is in the process of compiling results from a 2006 survey of gardeners. A similar survey conducted two years earlier drew an 80 percent response rate and revealed that more than three in four gardeners returned to their plots, though turnover varied significantly among sites.
Macdonald saw what he described as a "remarkable shift" the last time he put a report together — the growing number of gardeners who said they lived within walking distance of their plots. The number residing within a quarter mile increased nearly three-fold to 37 percent, and another 28 percent were within a half mile, up from 20 percent.
The '04 survey also disclosed that patches were a significant source of food, with nearly a third of gardeners getting 50 percent or more of their produces needs from their patches from April to October. Based on anecdotal information, there's no reason to believe those trends won't continue.
The No. 1 reason people gave for gardening was to grow their own food, followed by the desire to grow "organic." In descending order, other categories were: "solace/therapy," "recreation," "commune with nature," and "sense of community."
Some elaborated with comments regarding what motivated them: "teach my child about where food comes from," "grow food for others," "love the people," and "brings joy."
Among those hoping to get her hands dirty soon is Susan Talton, an apartment dweller in Belltown who is wait-listed on three high-demand P-patches: Belltown, Interbay, and Queen Anne. She signed up for a plot last August after moving here from Phoenix.
"I've been an avid recreational gardener (tomatoes, vegetables, herbs, and flowers) for years, so was thrilled when I learned about the P-Patch program," she said via e-mail. "Belltown would be the closest to me, but I know the wait list there is longer than average, so a short bus ride to another garden would be fine, too ... I expected a growing-season's wait, but yes, it has dragged on a bit."
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Jun 20, 7:46 a.m. inappropriate
Aren't there plenty of R.O.W. areas which need tending?: My general impression is that Seattle has extensive areas in public right-of-way which are forlorn and unkept, some of which might be perfect for gardeners looking for a place to dig.
I recognize that a garden needs water and P-Patch gardens probably have other functional requirements, but it sure seems to me like there are plenty of public spaces which could use the sort of TLC which a P-Patch gardener provides.
Posted Fri, Jun 20, 10:21 a.m. inappropriate
Rights of Way: The street right of way on 62nd between 2nd and 3rd NW was never paved, so it became a p-patch as well as access to the homes fronting it.
There are plenty of quiet streets in our town which could be converted from asphalt to p-patch, maintaining a lane for home access, if we were willing to make it a priority.
Posted Fri, Jun 20, 11:48 a.m. inappropriate
I've got an answer: It seems obvious to me that DON isn't charging enough if we have a wait-list that long. $34 a year is apparently quite cheap. If they were to start charging more to get a more reasonably sized wait-list and I imagine more tunrover, they would then have more revenue to help start more patches throughout the City.
Posted Fri, Jun 20, 12:38 p.m. inappropriate
get your hands dirty before you dig in: P-patch gardening is gratifying personal experience but it takes a community to run a p-patch.
Those who are eager to get their own city plot do not have to wait for a p-patch assignment to get their hands dirty. P-patches are public parks and, depending upon the specific p-patch, there are many opportunities to get involved, learn about gardening, and share in the harvest.
For example, the Interbay P-Patch has a wonderful food bank garden run by Deb Rock and Jude Berman. Every Tuesday night from 5:30 until dusk you can work in the food bank garden and learn about the most up-to-date city gardening techniques. It is a great way to meet people and do good for the world.
Also, getting to know the people in your neighborhood p-patch is a good way to familiarize yourself with how the p-patch is managed and to learn about how to garden and what to grow when you get your own patch. Often opportunities arise throughout the growning season where gardeners (who are out-of-town, sick, or for some reason need help) can use an extra hand to water, weed, or (best of all) harvest.
There is always something to do in the garden.
Posted Fri, Jun 20, 1 p.m. inappropriate
What would the adjacent property owners think, though? Recall the shoreline street-end controversies....
Posted Sat, Jun 21, 8:58 a.m. inappropriate
I hope things are "a changing": My three year (2002-5) experience in the p-patch program was sadly memorable. I joined the p-patch to be part of the program, I contributed double or triple time than the required 8 hours per year. After three years I gave up my plot because it did not work for me. I was surrounded on three sides by lazy gardeners. Those folks who garden 5 days a year. No amount of kindness, prodding, or complaining would budge my p-patch neighbors to actually work their gardens. They had this romantic believe gardening only took 5 days a year. In actuallity to do it properly it takes 5 days a month. My adjacent gardening dreamers waited until May to turn the soil, they'd plant in June harvest crop in September. Their crop production was dissappointing and buggy because between June 15th-Sept. 15th they never set foot in their p-patch. I brought this to the attention of Rich and he said there was no policy regarding lazy gardeners and everyone tends their plots differently. He also said I need to encourage my fellow p-patch neighbors to which I replied "if they are never there, how can I encourage them?" I sent photos to Rich and my p-patch neighbors showing 2-3 foot tall weeds. My garden was ruined by their lack of input as their weeds and slugs trashed my garden. After three years I dropped out of the program as it was not worth my time to fight with DON and the adjacent plot owners. Other p-patch folks felt sorry and could see what I was dealing with. I was offered another plot in a different part of the patch which was considerate. However my plot #2 was the best location for what I was gardening. I believe they have a policy now to deal with those p-patch neighbors who spoiled my experience. I wanted to be a part of it and was... for three years I tried, it just did not work for me.
Posted Sun, Jun 22, 1:59 p.m. inappropriate
Good Neighbor Gardening: If you are interested in seeing more urban gardens in Seattle, visit www.goodneighborgarden.org. This is a project by urban neighbors to demonstrate and promote edible gardens in planting strips and other underused public property. Stop by and say hi at our booth at the Thursday (3-7 pm) Queen Anne Farmers Market, where we are also hosting seed and start exchanges. Many of our volunteers are on P-Patch wait lists, and happy to dig, weed, and share their efforts with the community. If one of the best things you can do for the earth is to grow your own food, let's use some ingenuity to make it easier. -- Julie W.
Posted Mon, Jun 23, 1:43 p.m. inappropriate
RE: I hope things are "a changing": Sorry to hear about your frustrating PPatch experience. My husband and I were P-Patch gardeners for about decade in the 90s and over the years had gardens in several of the gardens--University, Picardo, Hillman.
As you might expect from an almost entirely volunteer-run organization, the degree of oversight and management varies from place to place, and even from year to year. There are many amazing and dedicated people who work really really hard to make this terrific program happen, and very few of them receive anything other than a "thank you"--if even that.
That said, in each of the gardens that we worked in, the people in charge would send a "weedy letter" to folks who really were letting their plots get out of hand, which included the threat that if the weeds weren't taken care of, the plot would be reassigned. So, there's already a procedure in place for the situation you described...whether or not your particular garden manager enforced it, well, that's another matter.
I will say that in all my PPatch gardening experience, the worst garden neighbor we ever had was a fairly well-known and highly-regarded Master Gardener about town! You never can tell.
Posted Mon, Jun 23, 1:50 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Aren't there plenty of R.O.W. areas which need tending?: The hillside garden on MLK way at McClellan is a great example of guerilla gardening in a (steep!) public right-of-way turning into a more formal garden, and quite a community asset. If you google "mount baker hillside garden", at the top of the results is the text of Jim Diers' book, which tells the story of how it came to be.
Posted Mon, Jun 23, 8:51 p.m. inappropriate
RE: I hope things are "a changing": Thanks Angie, you're the best of p-patch folks. I would enjoy having you as a patch neighbor. You're what I hoped for, I had much less than that and said to myself, why am I doing this? I own five houses, I have more gardening places than I need, I don't need aggravation, I really don't need a p-patch, I wanted to help and contribute to the program. Of the 25 plots in my (former patch) 20 were super. The entire program suffers when a few bad apples spoil potentially good thing. I chose to walk away for fear as being viewed as a ogre.