West Seattle, Washington
02 Wednesday
PLANT SALE: It’s happening at South Seattle Community College, 11 am – 3 pm. Nursery (North Lot entrance), promising “blowout prices.”
PET ADOPTIONS ON WHEELS: The big yellow MaxMobile is due back in West Seattle to offer mobile pet adoptions at Pet Pros in Westwood Village, noon-3 pm (more info here).
PROSECUTOR IN WEST SEATTLE: Got questions about what happens to criminals AFTER police arrest them? King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg is the scheduled guest at the South Delridge/White Center Community Safety Coalition at St. James Place tonight, 9421 18th SW (map), 6 pm (free dinner!).
PARK BRIEFINGS: The Seattle Parks Board hears a briefing on Seacrest dock improvements to facilitate year-round Elliott Bay Water Taxi service as well as briefing on possible changes to park operating hours, parks HQ downtown at 7 pm.
White Center Food Bank director Rick Jump is thrilled to have received that container to be turned into a worm-compost box for WCFB’s new “edible garden” – now he just needs a worm-savvy volunteer to help the box fulfill its destiny! He showed us the box when we stopped by this afternoon toward the end of a work party, during which Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle volunteers removed ornamental plantings from a long, narrow strip in front of the WCFB building, and started turning the space into the “edible garden”:
That’s Aviva from CHoSS – she brought kale and collard plants from her own garden to get into the newly tilled ground outside WCFB (which serves part of West Seattle, as well as White Center). The rich soil you see is partly thanks to compost donated by Cedar Grove, but that worm box we mentioned will have a big role in the future too – do you know how to set up and manage a box where worms will turn clippings and scraps into garden-ready compost? If so, please contact Rick at WCFB – rick@whitecenterfoodbank.org or 206.762.2848.
We’ve also posted this at partner site White Center Now, but thought you might be interested too, as the White Center Food Bank also serves part of West Seattle. From Aviva at Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle:
Community Harvest of SW Seattle in partnership with the White Center Food Bank will be removing some grasses and other ornamentals to make room for a food garden. This demonstration garden, designed by a SSCC horticulture student, will have sections for traditional Asian greens, square foot gardening, northwest berries, and containers. The intention of this garden is to inspire and educate on the possibilities for growing food, even in limited spaces.
Seattleworks volunteers will be digging up existing landscaping on February 21st, and we would like to offer some of these lovely grasses and bushes in exchange for compost (or $$ to buy compost!) All donations of time or money will be happily accepted and will go toward this project and other projects which encourage food growing amongst low-income residents of West Seattle and White Center.
Contact: info@gleanit.org
(July 2008 WSB photo of Psomizo Garden, west of new P-Patch location)
Just last week, reporting on the Southwest District Council‘s latest meeting, we mentioned that city Department of Neighborhoods director Stella Chao remarked on the popularity of the P-Patch community-garden program and its long waiting lists. Good news today – a site donated by West Seattle Christian Church in The Junction has won official approval to become a P-Patch (here are the current WS P-Patches), and Aaron Hernandez (shown above, tending the nearby donated-food Psomizo Garden last summer with his daughter) is looking for people to be on the Steering Committee. If you’re interested, contact Aaron at 206-280-5015 or wscc.grounds@hotmail.com – the garden plot is on the north side of church grounds, on Genesee between 41st and 42nd (map).
Updates constituted most of the highlights from Wednesday night’s Southwest District Council meeting — representatives from neighborhood groups and other key organizations dealing with the section of West Seattle that the city calls the SW District (map). In the photo above is Dante Taylor, who’s traveling the West Seattle meeting circuit to remind everyone that the city’s Junction parking review is getting under way (all our coverage is archived here). Regarding the big question, whether pay stations will be the result, Taylor stressed nothing is settled – the study is supposed to determine whether they would be needed anywhere to keep cars moving and create a steady flow of people through the business district. One of his previous appearances (WSB coverage here) was at the January meeting of the Junction Neighborhood Organization, whose president Erica Karlovits is co-chair of the SWDC; she reiterated concerns her group wants to keep on the front burner – “park and hiders,” who drive to Junction neighborhoods and leave their cars while catching buses to downtown, and construction workers parking in neighborhoods. Ahead, another Junction item – the latest on the 42nd/Alaska park – and more SWDC notes:Read More
It’s that thrilling time of winter – halfway between last summer’s big events and NEXT summer’s big events. And it’s never too soon to start planning the latter – in fact, it’s sponsor-search time for the West Seattle Garden Tour (photo above is from one of last year’s stops), coming up July 19:
We are actively seeking sponsors for this year’s tour, which will be the 15th Annual Tour, featuring Ciscoe Morris as the guest lecturer. The success of the tour is dependent upon the financial aid and in-kind donations from all of the sponsors, and we hope to make the 15th Annual Tour the most successful yet.
Begun in 1995 as a fundraising event for ArtsWest, the West Seattle Garden Tour has evolved into an annual fundraising event for a variety of non-profit and educational organizations in West Seattle and surrounding communities. The 2008 edition of the West Seattle Garden Tour was one of our most successful, attracting more than 650 tour-goers as well as raising $21,000 for ArtsWest and our specially selected beneficiaries, Multifaith Works, Ethel Dupar Fragrant Garden, Lighthouse for the Blind, Seattle Chinese Garden, and Elisabeth C. Miller Library University of Washington Botanic Gardens.
This year we are offering a variety of levels of sponsorship ranging from $50 to $2500 (event sponsor), details for each of the sponsorship levels can be found on the WSGT website (see those details here).
We hope to secure our major sponsors by March 10, 2009.
The “sponsorship commitment form” can be found here.
(Photo courtesy Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle, showing volunteers picking apples)
Thanks to community interest and generosity, Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle is growing even faster than the fruit trees and gardens that local neighbors have “loaned” them, to share the bounty. So founder Aviva wanted to post a note of thanks – with questions for you as well, to see if there’s interested in some of what the group has on the table:
Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle would like to thank all our generous
volunteers and tree owners for making the harvest of 2008 such an overwhelming success. We picked and donated more than 4,200 pounds of delicious local organic fruit and 800 pounds of vegetables. Volunteers harvested more than 65 trees, including a fig tree and some grape vines, planted two vegetable gardens, and started a few young fruit trees. At a time when food banks are experiencing increased need, we are grateful to make use of the abundance in our backyards for sharing with others.As we are planning for 2009, we have a few new projects we are considering. We would like to gauge community interest.
Are you a food-gardener-wanna-be? Do you wish you could walk out your door and pick fresh veggies for your dinner or lunch? Are you looking for a little help to develop your green thumb? CHOSS is contemplating a garden-mentor project, pairing experienced food gardeners with beginners so that more people can experience the joys of turning Lawns into Lettuce. If you are an experienced food gardener with a desire to share your art, or a novice who wants to get started, contact info@gleanit.org and let us know.
Our other potential project involves fruit. Yes, there are still lots of unharvested apple trees dropping fruit, and some would say, “why plant more trees?” But imagine a neighborhood orchard, planted anew with easy-pick disease resistant varieties, perfect for this climate. Imagine a neighborhood getting together for pruning parties, harvesting parties, community canning kitchens, cider making, with plenty left over for donation. Want to make this happen? Get in touch with us at info@gleanit.org.
We are also actively recruiting new board members, with skills, time and energy to share, especially in the areas of fund raising, event planning, and working with youth. Contact us at info@gleanit.org for more specifics.
CHOSS board member Mary Ellen Cunningham spoke about some of this at the Delridge Neighborhoods District Council earlier this week, and also mentioned a project next year to turn more of the fruit into preserves if it’s not otherwise usable. The group did a lot of teaching this past year as well as harvesting; here’s just one example.
Found this on the High Point Neighborhood Association website, though the P-Patch will be in the Junction area — a new one next year on a site donated by West Seattle Christian Church (which is already gardening to help neighbors in need, as we reported last July). If you’re interested in the P-Patch, Here’s how to get involved. West Seattle currently has six P-Patches, per this map.
From the Events calendar: At 10 am, the West Seattle Garden Club meets – topic, “Winterize Your Garden,” bring your lunch, the club provides dessert and beverage, $5 donation, Alki Congregational Church, 6115 SW Hinds (map). At 1 pm, the Nature Consortium‘s free monthly guided hike through a part of the West Duwamish Greenbelt you might not have known existed – it’s a fairly easy walk, fun, and fascinating, meet at the trailhead at 14th/Holly (map); call 923-0853 if you want more info first.
That’s one of the beaver ponds in the Delridge Natural Area, across from the temporary home of Chief Sealth High School (map). It’s one of 4 West Seattle greenspaces that would love to have your help tomorrow for Green Seattle Day. They’re in our West Seattle Weekend Lineup but one more shoutout seemed like the thing to do – a whole lot of planting’s going to be happening, rain or shine, and EVERY pair of hands is a gift: Orchard Street Ravine, 9 am-1 pm; Camp Long, 10 am-1 pm; Delridge Natural Area, 10 am-2 pm; West Duwamish Greenbelt, 10 am-2 pm. (P.S. One more place you can help out tomorrow – North Delridge Adopt-A-Street cleanup, meet at Delridge Community Center at 10 am.)
That Gatewood garden was one of the stops on this summer’s West Seattle Garden Tour. Think your garden will be a great stop for the tour next year? Not too late to let the WSGT Selection Committee know – Nancy Evans says the committee is still reviewing 2009 possibilities and would like to hear from interested gardeners ASAP: E-mail nancyellenevans@comcast.net with information on how they can contact you. (If you missed this year’s tour, WSGT pictures and descriptions are here.)
This afternoon, we’re welcoming the newest WSB sponsor: West Seattle Nursery, 
where fall gardening season is in full swing (check out the colors in the photo at left). As is the tradition when a new sponsor joins the WSB team, we offer them the chance to let you know who they are and what’s up with their business: “West Seattle Nursery has been selling plants to neighborhood gardeners year-round for 22 years. We are proud to provide a great selection of perennials, annuals, shrubs and trees – tried and true favorites but also rare and unusual garden gems. Quality is important to us, so the majority of our plants come from Northwest growers, thus they are acclimated for our climate and growing conditions. Our staff is a well-rounded group of seasoned gardeners and plant enthusiasts. When you come to visit us, our first priority is to show you around, answer your questions and help you find the perfect plants for your garden. Our destination gift shop is overflowing with beautiful and unusual gifts, housewares, books, and indoor plants. We also provide a great selection of seeds, bulbs, tools and soil amendments. Mark your calendars for upcoming events at West Seattle Nursery: Through October 25th, our Fall Art in the Garden Exhibit – talented and creative local artists and craftspeople have honored us with their beautiful, durable and fanciful garden art; Saturday, October 25th, from 10 am to 1 pm: Our first-ever Growing Gardeners Appreciation Event! Children ages 4-12 are welcome to join us for a costume contest and scavenger hunt. There will be prizes and treats for everyone, and you’ll be done just in time to go trick or treating in The Junction! For more information on joining our Growing Gardener Club visit our website: www.westseattlenursery.com; Saturday, November 15th, from 11 am to 3 pm: Our Fall Open House – Join us for complimentary espresso and hors d’oeuvres. Check out Ingrid’s beautiful Christmas trees and all of our other holiday-themed merchandise. Get seasonal gardening advice from our staff. We look forward to this event every year and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do! In December, some of the artists among our staff will be giving a wreath making seminar every week. We’ll teach you how to build beautiful holiday wreaths and table swags out of seasonal evergreens. They make great gifts. Dates and times to be announced in our Fall Mailer (add your name to our mailing list the next time you visit) and also on our website: www.westseattlenursery.com.” Huge thanks to West Seattle Nursery for its support, and to all our sponsors, as well as to you, in turn, for supporting them. Our full list of current advertisers can be found here, along with information on how to join them.
This morning, we welcome West Seattle’s e-green landscaping and materials to the West Seattle Blog sponsor team! Here’s what they want you to know about their locally owned business: 
“e-green landscaping and materials has been serving West Seattle since its beginning in 1999, with quality landscape contracting services and maintenance. They specialize in natural stone and concrete paver patios and walkways, along with garden renovations and design and build projects. They also have an ISA Certified Arborist and do full tree pruning, windsail pruning and shaping, tree health and hazard evaluations, and some tree removals. In 2003 e-green opened a new landscape and stone supply yard at 9010 Delridge Way SW, on the former site of Lenny’s Fuel. Here they sell bulk Cedar Grove compost and Veggie Garden Mix, Steerco Mulch, bark mulch, clean and minus 5/8″ gravel, drain/river rock, and builders’ sand in bulk or by the bag. They also stock both light and dark Basalt Rockery stone to match most West Seattle rockeries, granite boulder, quartzite boulders, a number of varieties of flagstone for walkways and patios, decorative pebbles and gravels, beach pebbles and more! They are West Seattle’s biggest bulk materials dealer and the only full stone yard in West Seattle. This winter they will add firewood and 5 lb. press logs to their wide selection of items. e-green offers full delivery service, with two residential sized trucks that can easily get into your driveway or back alley gates, including a small boom truck that can lift pallets of stone up onto your rockery, or pallet bags of compost, soil or other materials! e-green landscaping and materials is open from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Saturday. You can find them on the web through their easily browsed website at www.egreenlandscaping.com or contact them at (206) 763-7625. They are easy to find at 9010 Delridge Way SW, Seattle 98106, just south of the stoplight at Henderson and Delridge. They are approx. 3 blocks north of Roxbury, and 1/4 mile east of Westwood Village Mall.” Thanks to e-green landscaping and materials for joining the WSB sponsor team; the current lineup is on this page along with information on how to join them.
Before the autumn weather sweeps away all traces of Garden ’08 … Nancy Evans, who’s on the selection committee for the West Seattle Garden Tour, sends word they’re looking ahead to next year already:
Do you have or know of an amazing garden in West Seattle? The West Seattle Garden Tour Selection Committee is currently viewing gardens for the 2009 tour. We would love to hear about any gardens that you may find interesting and a possibility for the upcoming tour. Please e-mail nancyellenevans@comcast.net with contact information.
You can check the WSGT site for some pix of the featured gardens from this year’s tour.
This Saturday morning, if you get to a certain Gatewood address in time, you will score one (or more) of those repurposed buckets, planted with winter veggies, for … believe it or not … $5 each. So says the Urban Land Army, in announcing its Bucket Brigade. Here’s how Sandy Pederson explains it:
Bucket Brigade is a project of West Seattle-based Urban Land Army (www.urbanlandarmy.com), a new local business and website that connects urbanites who want to become more self-sufficient and improve the health of their neighborhood. Growing more of our own food and reducing waste is a big focus, and Bucket Brigade lets us do both!
The buckets are donated by a local westside bakery, Little Rae’s Bakery. They are sturdy, food-safe containers, but they cannot be recycled in Seattle, so we have rescued them from the landfill and planted them up for the people! We have cooking buckets with swiss chard, kale, Pac Choi, beet greens, mustards, and Chinese Cabbage, and Fresh Eats buckets with 3 kinds of lettuce and spinach. All of these plants can be harvested through the winter and are easy to care for (but we have instructions just in case!). They are perfect for people in apartments or condos, fun for kids, and for those who just love a good veggie bucket. Where and when, you ask? 3726 SW Austin (map), 9 am-noon this Saturday. (Side note: Their site points to Not-Just-For-Profit; our fellow small/sustainable businesspeople may want to check it out.) AFTERNOON UPDATE: Sandy says KOMO Radio saw this item and called for an interview, so you may hear her on AM 1000.
From the city P-Patch managers via the North Delridge mailing list — thieves spotted at the Delridge P-Patch:
Our office got a call this afternoon from a neighbor of the P-Patch stating she witnessed two men roaming the garden with shopping bags stealing produce at about 1:30 pm this afternoon. She confronted the thieves and called police, but disappointingly they never came or called back. She described the thieves as two caucasian men in their thirties. One had reddish brown hair and was wearing gold pants. They were both thin and tall according to the neighbor. They ran across Delridge in opposite directions, one toward the boarded up green house across Delridge and the other into the wooded area across Delridge. She has seen them around the neighborhood before. Please be aware and on the lookout. Hopefully her confronting them will deter them from stealing more.
You may recall, we reported Lincoln Park P-Patch theft (which subsequently attracted citywide-media attention) two months ago.
Fans were already lined up through the produce section at West Seattle Thriftway this morning waiting for “Captain Phil” from the “Deadliest Catch” reality show — who signed autographs for about two hours on behalf of his new coffee company:
As fans had mentioned in the comments following our original WSB preview of his appearance, he’s had some health trouble, so we asked how he’s doing:
As you can tell from what he said in that video (sorry about the background noise – new mike’s on order, after a week of shooting events in very loud places), Captain Phil is proud of his “Deadliest Blend” (the name stirs memories of the triple-strength grind we made during overnight radio shifts decades ago, but thank heavens coffee’s come a long way since then) – you can read more about Captain Phil’s coffee here. We also dropped by the West Seattle Farmers’ Market to see how things were going at the Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle booth:
Mary Ellen Cunningham of CHoSS (pictured with Anthony Hardt of Left Coast Dog Walkers) hadn’t gotten any produce donations yet when we dropped by but was thrilled anyway because her group’s getting new citywide publicity – a KING5 tv crew stopped by the booth (look for the story on tonight’s newscasts). Community Harvest has other big news – as noted on its website, the fruit-tree harvest (if your tree has more than you can eat, donate its fruit and they’ll send volunteers over to harvest it) has already brought in more than A TON of fruit – more than twice last year’s total – and the season’s not over yet!
Atlas Stringband is playing at the annual Village Green Perennial Nursery (WSB sponsor) halibut barbecue (here’s the backstory) till 3 pm. As co-publisher Patrick put it after shooting that video, “They’re GOOD!” Meantime, here’s nursery owner Vera Johnson and halibut-catching husband Bill Curtin cooking, followed by a photo of the mid-barbecue crowd:
One more event under way till 3 pm — at High Point Library, you can meet one of the architects who helped design it, Brad Miller of Miller Hayashi Architects, and enjoy free coffee/snacks. This is part of a daylong, citywide celebration of Seattle Public Libraries (some other branches around Seattle have architects on hand too) — and at any library, till 6 pm, you can get a free “passport” that you can take to any and all libraries between now and January 2nd to get stamped (read more about it here).
If your garden’s bursting with more veggies and fruit than you can use, Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle and the White Center Food Bank (whose service area includes southern West Seattle) have a new way for you to make sure they don’t go to waste — “Share the Bounty,” Sunday 9/14 at the West Seattle Farmers’ Market. Community Harvest will have a table set up there; just bring your spare produce to donate, during WSFM hours, 10 am-2 pm that day. Want to know more? Check the Community Harvest website at gleanit.org, or call 762-0604.
It’s been gone a while, but CSR wonders if perhaps someone in WSB-land has seen the birthday-gift bonsai (photo at left) stolen from her home earlier this summer. From her e-mail: “On the weekend of July 5th while my husband and I were away, someone entered our fenced-in backyard in the Admiral neighborhood of 48th Ave SW and Lander and stole a 30-year old Chinese Elm bonsai and planter that I had given to my husband for his 70th birthday. The tree, about 2 1/2 feet high, is beautifully shaped and was the focal point upon entering our yard. When we filed a police report, we were told that it is not unknown for unscrupulous gardeners and landscapers to steal plants (even digging them up) and sell them to their customers. We believe that someone who knows the value of bonsai trees saw ours when the gate was open and waited until the time was right to steal it. Bonsai Northwest told our insurance company that stolen bonsai sometimes show up on Craig’s List. I suspect that too much time has gone by for this post to help us recover our stolen bonsai, but I am attaching a photo to alert our community and on the off chance that someone may have bought it from the thief not realizing that it was stolen.” If you’ve got a tip, the SPD non-emergency number is 625-5011.
We originally posted this at White Center Now, where we’re the news-coverage part of the contributor team, but in case you didn’t see it there, we’re mentioning it here during weekend nursery-going time: Village Green Perennial Nursery (WSB sponsor) proprietor Vera Johnson‘s husband Bill Curtin is back from his latest Alaska fishing trip, and part of the catch is on sale at Village Green. Here’s the full story (with pic of a humongous halibut).
Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle, the folks behind last weekend’s first-ever Edible Gardens Tour of West Seattle (WSB coverage here) and volunteer tree-harvesting to collect food for those in need, is offering free canning classes this month, plus a Community Canning Kitchen, focusing on plums. The classes are at 10 am August 23rd at PCC and 6:30 pm August 27th at the Senior Center (Community Harvest says that one’s open to all ages). Here’s more info on the CHoSS website.
That garden along SW Rose in Gatewood was one of 10 stops today on the first-ever Edible Gardens of West Seattle tour, presented by Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle. That view looks west down Rose, with Puget Sound in the distance – notice the garden’s in the “parking strip” (which is adjacent property owners’ responsibility to maintain). We talked with one of the gardeners, who tells us in this video clip that the garden’s good for more than food:
The tour was free (locations were listed on the online map). Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle is best known for organizing volunteer help to harvest fruit from trees where it otherwise might go to waste; to find out how to help with harvests, or how to “donate” the yield of your tree(s), check the CHoSS website.
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