West Seattle Wed. notes: Gardening, movies, TV, Rotary berries

| Gardening | How to help | WS culture/arts

First, 2 garden notes, starting with Marguerite‘s search for partners:

I am a gardener and I live in the North Admiral area (44th/Hill). I have a very wide and long parking strip I was thinking of turning into an organic veggie garden. The space is too large for me, so I am looking to see if there is interest in a pea patch sort of thing. I am thinking of 5 – 6 people that would like to have a area to grow veggies and help get the area ready for planting. I will help with the know how , each person would need to tend their own plot and contribute to water bills.

Click here to e-mail Marguerite. Still in the garden mode: an ongoing plant sale:

More than 10 varieties of organically raised tomato plants, and other plants for your garden, are on sale at Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor) as an ongoing fundraiser for Furry Faces Foundation, whose ringleader Teri Ensley says, “As always, proceeds of our fundraisers fund spays/neuters and the animals whose humans are on fixed incomes.” Plants are being regularly replenished, so if there’s something you’re looking for, check with Teri, furryfaces@hotmail.com.

MOVIE & TV NOTES: While we were at Hotwire photographing the plants, we got two more bits of news to share – Hotwire proprietor Lora Lewis says the last Movies on the Wall offering has changed to “Galaxy Quest” (it was “My Dog Skip”); that’s on August 23 and we’ve made the change on our Cinema page. Lora also told us her barista Blayne has made it onto “Project Runway” and is out of town doing the show right now!

FINAL NOTE – BERRY TIME: The Rotary Club of West Seattle is taking orders now for its annual berry sale; Amy Lee Derenthal sends along this info:

By purchasing berries from the Rotary Club of West Seattle you are supporting our fundraising efforts for the programs we provide as a Service Club in our community:

– Shopping Spree where we take underprivileged children shopping at Sears on the first Saturday of December for the past 35 years.

– Community Support where money is donated to a local projects including the Senior Center & Neighborhood House â€œHeart of High Pointâ€ Campaign.

– Pencil Me In For Kids purchasing school supplies for grade school children.

Order your strawberries, raspberries and/or blueberries today! Berries are FRESH from beautiful Mount Vernon , WA â€” cleaned, hulled, & packed only in their own juices â€” no sugar added. Ready for pies, canning, jam or freezing for year-round enjoyment! Go to our website to download the order form: www.westseattlerotary.org

charlabob June 18, 2008 (9:35 am)

“Lora also told us her barista Blaine has made it onto â€œProject Runwayâ€ and is in L.A. doing the show right now.”

My g-d, this is HUGE! Seattle is the largest market in the country for Project Runway (it must be our well-developed fashion sense.) First year we discovered the show, Cirque had a “finals viewing” party. All the big stars from PR come here for events — it will be great fun seeing a hometown (person?) And Christian rules! :-)

k June 18, 2008 (9:36 am)

it’s so exciting that blayne made it on “project runway!!!!!! best of luck blayne. we are all rooting for you!!!

WSB June 18, 2008 (9:46 am)

K, I take it I spelled his name incorrectly :) will fix. P.S. Given the reaction, I guess as they say in “legacy media,” I “buried the lead” in this post …

JoB June 18, 2008 (10:26 am)

we need more than a finals viewing party…

charlabob June 18, 2008 (11:19 am)

You certainly did bury the lead, WSB (although my current crop of tomato plants have all died, so I’ll probably stop by to get new ones.)

OTOH, think of all the people who read the whole article because of your intriguing “TV” reference.

Aim June 18, 2008 (11:50 am)

ooooh we heart Blayne!!!
Sadly, though, we no longer have cable. Who wants to organize/host PR viewing parties next season??? Yes, this is me inviting myself over… just don’t know where *grin*

charlabob June 18, 2008 (11:55 am)

Aim, see the forum thread on this subject — y’all can come to our house unless someone finds us a safe divey biker bar–my first (always) choice.

WSMom June 18, 2008 (12:36 pm)

So Tracy at WSB, I’d like it if the “Notes” were separated out by subject so that we can comment on individual subjects accordingly. Plus, I find that I’m missing info buried within the “notes” thread. Just a suggestion.

WSB June 18, 2008 (12:42 pm)

Thanks. I try not to do the notes posts too often BUT there are some days I have about 12 things waiting to be reported/posted and if I post about them separately it’s worse clutter, particularly for the folks who read via RSS. So as opposed to not posting some of them, or waiting till tomorrow or the next day (when something else pushes it off the radar) – if there is a theme – and Hotwire items segued off the theme – I have to do it this way. In the not terribly distant (I hope) future we will have a better design that allows more items to be posted distinctly in different spots on the front page, higher on the page, facilitating more content to be showcased separately and yet simultaneously.

Bob June 18, 2008 (2:11 pm)

Marguerite,

When I was much younger, in ye olde distant primitive past when all gasoline was leaded and nothing was dubbed organic and people adjusted their carburetors to achieve things not necessarily including making the tailpipe smoke less, kids used to pick blackberries along streets in spots where cars regularly parked right next to the vines and you could see clouds of exhaust going straight onto the bushes and the berries.

That wasn’t in Admiral, but in general I’d suspect that backyards or even front yards are a better bet even now for an organic garden than something close to exhaust pipe level near the curb.

Fuel is cleaner now, and car engines burn a lot more cleanly, but if that parking strip is where exhaust can blow on it from close range when cars park, and start up, and idle and unpark, then the veggies still might not turn out to be completely organic. Just a thought.

And there’s no good way to get a test kit for that kind of thing, as far as I know. “Insert berry/leaf/stem here. Wait 60 seconds. Patch turns pink if not organic.”

HWC June 18, 2008 (2:40 pm)

It’s HWC and yes our Blayne will be on PR this season which starts July 16th on Bravo. He’s currently in NYC filming and will be back on July 19th. We’re thinking about a big PR party at one of the local businesses too, any suggestions? Gotta say he’s worked darn hard to be on the show and we’re all super proud of him!

WSB June 18, 2008 (3:12 pm)

We’ll post a separate update a little bit later, have just received some photos of Blayne. First though we’re heading over to White Center for a progress report on Full Tilt Ice Cream/Pinball, which just got good news from the city AND is expecting the pinball machines any time now. Look for that report within a few hours …

WSB June 18, 2008 (5:56 pm)

Blayne pix posted now.
https://westseattleblog.com/blog/?p=8378

marguerite July 3, 2008 (10:05 pm)

In response to Bob’s comment on planting veggies on parking strips: My neighborhood is not high traffic and we plan to have a set back from the curb to avoid any exposure from a car. I am also going to post a polite sign asking people to avoid parking there because of the planting. I still feel that growing food on my parking strip is far better than what we purchase at the grocery store that is not certified organic. I am a cancer survivor and I am so tired of finding out what our food is exposed to before we get it.

Sorry, comment time is over.