I started urban gardening in Seattle in 1999, in the back yard of a friend of mine about 3 miles from where I lived in West Seattle. She provided the space and materials, and we provided the labor. It proved difficult to remember to drive the 10 minutes each way to water during that hot summer and some of the food was wasted. And it was lonely there. So in 2000 I moved to Marra Farm P-Patch in South Park. But the crab grass down there drove me crazy – even working nearby and going over to my garden after work it seemed like all I did was weed weed weed.

In 2001 we bought our first house and I moved to Delridge P-Patch in 2002 after changing jobs and South Park being the wrong direction for my work commute. I gardened in Delridge for three seasons then moved my gardening home to my quarter acre lot. I joined the Board of Directors of P-Patch Trust in 2004, and became Secretary.

I adopted a dog in 2005 and was not as attentive to my p-patch as I should have been, driving the mile to the garden to water at about the time I knew I didn’t all my plants would die. The dog was bored sitting there while all I did was weed weed weed – not crab grass this time but something equally obnoxious. My next-door neighbor took down a beautiful Douglas fir tree in his yard – which I hated him for – but now I had sun in my yard so I moved my gardenign home. Health conditions made it impossible for me to maintain the garden at the standard I believed it should be at beginning in 2004 which was also another reason to move home. But I was sick of essentially standing on my head weeding. You kneel, dig with one hand pull with the other and your feet fall asleep. Or you lean on one arm and work wth the other. It was just work. The occasional tomato or strawberry just did not make it worth it. The big windstorm of December 2006 took down the massive trees on our own lot and it just wasn’t the same after that. Then the dandelions and creeping buttercup got the best of me and we sold the property in 2007 and moved to High Point. To a townhome. With no yard. Where you actually get in trouble for messing around with the plants in front of your house. I am in heaven.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have a garden. We dug up all of the plants I loved and brought them with us – I have a 200 square foot deck garden on the north side of my home filled with massive pots of hostas, huckleberry and salal and sword fern, maidenhair fern, many herbs and types of mint (for mojitos!), pots of bamboo, and some miscellaneous pots of shade preferring plants that a neighbor in the building facing us gave to us because her deck faced west and her plants were dying. And on my front porch, which faces south, I actually grow tomatoes, banana pepper and strawberries in pots, too. And other various edibles that I find entertaining. Oh, I have an amazing Meyer lemon tree that I have been babying since 2007 that is now in full bloom and it smells wonderful. And a small lime shrub. (Photo gallery below is the “Plots To Pots” transformation)

I’ve been walking past the p-patch garden built in the last year in Commons Park and wished I could be a part of the gardening community, but my health just won’t let me crawl around on the ground and garden. I still know most of the Seattle P-Patch staff and the Board of Directors (which I left in 2007 after 3 years of service), and whenever I would see the garden coordinator I would bug her for an ADA raised planter so that I and others like myself could garden while standing up. This is why gardening in pots has been so wonderful for me – I don’t have to bend, stoop or crawl to pull the occasional piss of grass or stalk of Herb Robert (also called “Stinky Bob” ). Completely manageable. (And don’t tell anyone, but I still pull the occasional dandelion out in front of my house.)

On Friday the dog and I walked by and the ADA planter was finally there – a wooden shell with just a bit of dirt thrown in the bottom, clearly waiting for someone to finish filling it. I sent an email to my p-patch contact, and she gave me a link to go get on the waiting list for the standing garden planter. I don’t know if anyone else has reserved it, or if it’s truly got my name on it since I have been asking for it for a few years. It looks like my gardening experience is coming full circle. A decade or more of growing plants in the city – so many ways to do it. I am looking forward to being part of a gardening community again. And it will be so easy to water every morning that it needs it since I walk the dog all over the neighborhood three times a day anyway. (I just hope no one steals my food!! I am afraid the planter might be a target.)

The email I got back from the form that I filled out on the web site to get on the waiting list offered some fantastic resources for eager gardeners who want to get their hands dirty sooner rather than later. For me, I can wait until this stand-up gardening space is ready for a gardener. But 10 years ago I was desperate to grow my own lettuce and tomatoes and lemon cucumbers and this information is very valuable to eager urban gardeners in Seattle.

While you’re waiting for a P-Patch community garden plot:

With the huge and growing interest in gardening and urban agriculture, you will have to wait awhile before getting a community garden plot. Some of the following websites may help get you gardening sooner.

Urban Garden Share http://www.urbangardenshare.org/  and Urban Land Army http://www.urbanlandarmy.com/ click on Land Link. These two web sites try to connect those who have spare land with those who want to garden

2010 Year of Urban Agriculture: The city sponsored web site is part of Seattle’s 2010 Year of Urban Agriculture; it list news, events and activities http://www.seattle.gov/urbanagriculture/

Urban Farm Hub. This local websites compiles an amazing amount of urban agriculture related news. http://www.urbanfarmhub.org

Community Harvest of West Seattle, Garden Helpers – Connecting New Gardeners with Community Mentors and Community Orchard. Learn more at www.gleanit.org

Solid Ground- Lettuce Link (an innovative food and gardening program growing and giving since 1988) creates access to fresh, nutritious and organic produce, seeds, and gardening information for families with lower incomes in Seattle. To learn more and get involved at http://www.solid-ground.org/Programs/Nutrition/Lettuce/Pages/default.aspx

Alleycat Acres an urban farm collective – “transforms vacant spaces to create a network of sustainable urban farms that reconnect people to food while helping to increase food security on a community level.” To Learn more visit their website at http://www.alleycatacres.com/

City Fruit works neighborhood by neighborhood to help residential tree owners grow healthy fruit, to harvest and use what they can, and to share what they don’t need. To get involved visit their website at http://cityfruit.org/

Spring into Bed http://www.springintobed.org/  is a grass-roots, city wide, garden building event and fundraiser – building, strengthening and celebrating the City’s flourishing community food systems

Garden your planting strip: Seattle Department of Transportation does allow gardening on planting strips with a simple permit. Click here for more information.

The photo gallery below is from my “Plots To Pots” experience – moving cherished and loved plants from our 1/4 acre lot near Puget Ridge into pots up the hill in High Point. It’s easy to remember to water these plants since they are right here – and it takes about 10 trips from the kitchen with my watering can to water everything. (Watering is the only time I really hate my low-flow water faucet. It takes so LONG to fill up the watering can!!)