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Gardening 496 results

4 easy ways to get greener: Saturday’s “Green Seattle Day”
November 7, 2008 10:49 pm
|    Comments Off on 4 easy ways to get greener: Saturday’s “Green Seattle Day”
 |   Environment | Gardening | How to help | West Seattle news

beaverpond.jpgThat’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.)

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West Seattle gardeners: Want to show off – next year?
October 19, 2008 11:02 am
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 |   Gardening | West Seattle news

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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.)

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Welcoming a new WSB sponsor: West Seattle Nursery
October 17, 2008 12:24 pm
|      7 COMMENTS
 |   Gardening | West Seattle businesses | West Seattle online

This afternoon, we’re welcoming the newest WSB sponsor: West Seattle Nursery, wsnurseryside.jpgwhere 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.

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Welcoming a new WSB sponsor: e-green landscaping and materials
September 25, 2008 11:20 am
|      5 COMMENTS
 |   Delridge | Gardening | West Seattle businesses | West Seattle online

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: egren.jpg“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.

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Got a great garden? Quick – let the West Seattle Tour know!
September 24, 2008 6:01 pm
|    Comments Off on Got a great garden? Quick – let the West Seattle Tour know!
 |   Gardening | West Seattle news

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.

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Bucket Brigade offers you a garden for very little green
September 18, 2008 6:30 am
|      1 COMMENT
 |   Environment | Gardening | Gatewood | West Seattle news

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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.

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West Seattle Crime Watch: More P-Patch pilfering
September 17, 2008 5:22 pm
|      5 COMMENTS
 |   Crime | Gardening | West Seattle news

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.

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West Seattle Sunday scenes: Captain Phil at Thriftway, and more
September 14, 2008 4:33 pm
|      3 COMMENTS
 |   Gardening | West Seattle news | West Seattle video

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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:

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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:

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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:

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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!

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Also happening now: Fish-b-q with music; library fun
September 13, 2008 1:30 pm
|    Comments Off on Also happening now: Fish-b-q with music; library fun
 |   Fun stuff to do | Gardening | West Seattle video

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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:

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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).

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If your garden runneth over — “Share the Bounty”
September 4, 2008 6:16 am
|    Comments Off on If your garden runneth over — “Share the Bounty”
 |   Gardening | How to help | West Seattle news

harvestpic.jpgIf 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.

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Crime Watch: The case of the purloined planter (and bonsai)
September 2, 2008 9:56 am
|      2 COMMENTS
 |   Crime | Gardening | West Seattle news

bonsai.jpgIt’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.

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From the blog about White Center: Fish among flowers
August 23, 2008 6:07 am
|    Comments Off on From the blog about White Center: Fish among flowers
 |   Gardening | White Center

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).

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Free classes: You grew it – now can it!
August 8, 2008 7:37 am
|      3 COMMENTS
 |   Fun stuff to do | Gardening | West Seattle news

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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.

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West Seattle gardeners make history in 1st “edible” tour
August 2, 2008 8:14 pm
|      4 COMMENTS
 |   Gardening | Gatewood | West Seattle news | West Seattle video

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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:

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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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Today/tonight: Something old, something new, something Blue
August 2, 2008 6:03 am
|    Comments Off on Today/tonight: Something old, something new, something Blue
 |   Blue Angels | Fun stuff to do | Gardening | WS culture/arts

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That represents the “new” … the photo was sent by Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle (photo credit: Jason of “The Shibaguyz”) to entice you to today’s first-ever Edible Garden Tour of West Seattle. This garden tour is free – go here to get the map – tour any and/or all of the 10 spotlighted gardens between 10 am-2 pm today (including the one that produce came from). Now, something “old” …

That’s another scene from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” the 1988 pioneering live-action/animation hybrid classic that we at WSB are presenting tonight (in conjunction with Click! Design That Fits [WSB sponsor]) at West Seattle Movies on the Wall, dusk (8:45-ish) in the courtyard next to Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor) on the north edge of The Junction. Free, but in the spirit of Jessica Rabbit’s “Why Doncha Do Right” song in that clip – you can “do right” by bringing nonperishable food to donate to West Seattle Food Bank and $ for the West Seattle Christian Church (WSB sponsor)-presented concessions benefiting WSFB, plus a fundraising raffle (with the help of Hotwire boss Lora Lewis and some other fine folks we’ll tell you about at the movie, we’ve collected a bag of completely cool West Seattleness). Last but by no means least, something Blue …

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As described in our “Seafair secrets” post, we always watch the Blue Angels at Lake Washington on Seafair Friday. But now, the weekend is here. You can watch them from the lake – or you can catch glimpses from West Seattle (WSB’er “Hopey” reports a great flyby at Westcrest on Friday) – and then there is our preferred method of viewing, at the Museum of Flight, their HQ while visiting Seattle. It’s a sort of “behind-the-scenes” view, when you stake out a spot on the fence that faces the area where the jets are parked (read our “On the Fence” post from last year, with pix), and spend the hour and a half or so before showtime watching first the maintenance crew’s arrival and activities, then the pilots themselves, leading up to the “walkdown” as they go to their planes – this 2007 photo is from their lineup pre-walkdown:

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Once they’re in the jets, the sights and sounds include the whine of the cockpits closing, the engines roaring awake, then the groundshaking takeoff; the show is just over a ridge to the east, so you can see the high maneuvers from the MoF, and there are flybys – followed by the landing, and the walkdown in reverse, and your chance to applaud the pilots once they’re out of their planes. The practice show yesterday started around 1:45 pm, later than usual; wherever you’re going to watch from, you’ll want to be in place no later than 12:45 pm which is when the I-90 bridge closes. Full Seafair info on the official site; here’s our Blue Angels coverage archive.

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How to handle a masked bandit who’s not Crime Watch material
July 22, 2008 8:29 pm
|      42 COMMENTS
 |   Gardening | Gatewood | Reader recommendations | Wildlife

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Susan on Gatewood Hill is looking for advice:

Does anyone have a good deterrent for raccoons? Obviously, having a water garden with tasty plants and potable water is an attraction, we admit. What we’d like to know is if anyone has had success with the predator pee, or cayenne powder, or other “scentual” deterrents. These photos were taken last night.

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West Seattle Crime Watch: P-Patch pilfering
July 20, 2008 9:04 pm
|      8 COMMENTS
 |   Crime | Gardening | West Seattle news

Lots of gardening-related news today already (Community Harvest update here; West Seattle Garden Tour report here), but here’s one we wish we didn’t have to report. Maybe it’s a simple case of misunderstanding, rather than outright deliberate theft, but whatever it is, Lincoln Park P-Patch coordinator Michelle wants it to stop – here’s what she e-mailed us:

I was wondering if you would post a note on your blog about the rise in the number of theft incidents from the Lincoln Park P-Patch over the past couple of months. We have had entire vegetable plants stolen from the beds as well as produce prematurely harvested.

With the rising cost of food and fuel, we recognize that everyone is feeling the pinch at the stores lately. That, and the concern over the safety of mass produced food, is why many of us find growing our own vegetables and herbs to be our best option. Quite a bit of sweat and effort goes into growing the gardens, so to have someone come along and pluck until their heart’s content is very discouraging. We want to let the community know that they are more than welcome to wander and admire the variety of flowers and vegetables there, but the produce and plants are not up for grabs. If anyone is interested in gardening a plot of their own, they can find more information at: www.ci.seattle.wa.us/neighborhoods/ppatch/gardening.htm.

We’ve also reported here in recent months about various group gardening efforts that are using volunteer help and sharing the harvest with those who helped do the work (like Longfellow Creek Garden in the Delridge area), so watch for more word of chances to get involved with gardens like those. TUESDAY MORNING P.S.: After this WSB item appeared Sunday night, two citywide media outlets contacted us Monday asking about the story; here’s the KOMO version.

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West Seattle Garden Tour: “Couldn’t’ve asked for better weather”
July 20, 2008 4:36 pm
|      2 COMMENTS
 |   Gardening | West Seattle news

That’s what we overheard as we walked up to this West Seattle Garden Tour stop:

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The “Southern St. Communal Garden” stop on the tour (aka “Color Crazy”) involved a group of homes a block west of California (intersection map here) on the hillside over southern Lincoln Park. This mini-subdivision made news last year when the mysterious “West Seattle Art Attack”-er was on the prowl — third photo in this post shows the tile-decorated mail drop out front. The theme resurfaces on one of the garden paths:

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We also photographed a pair of young ladies taking advantage of the traffic for an on-the-spot fundraiser: Alex and Alissa were selling lemonade to raise money for Alex’s Explorer West Middle School trip to Rome:

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Nine gardens in all (all outlined on the WSGT website) were on this year’s West Seattle Garden Tour, with a portion of the proceeds going to nonprofits including ArtsWest and the Seattle Chinese Garden (which also had tables at the stop we visited); admission also included an hourlong lecture at The Kenney by PlantAmnesty founder Cass Turnbull. The WSGT runs on a whole lot of volunteer power, even as a self-guided tour, so if you couldn’t help out this year, think about pitching in next year – contact info is on the WSGT website.

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Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle celebrates first harvest
July 20, 2008 12:56 pm
|      2 COMMENTS
 |   Gardening | How to help | West Seattle news

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harvest1.jpgThat’s part of the haul from this year’s first fruit-tree harvest by Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle. If you have a fruit tree whose yield could go to help make sure everyone in our community has good healthy food, yours could be next – harvesting help is needed too. Here’s the latest update from Aviva of Community Harvest (who also sent the photos – thanks!):

Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle, the group that harvests surplus fruit from residential trees, had its first harvest on Friday. Six volunteers met for a few hours in the backyard of a house near Westwood Village. The result: 113 pounds of beautiful ripe cherries to be distributed at the White Center Food Bank on Monday. If you are interested in joining this effort or know of a tree to donate, have a look at their website: www.gleanit.org.

Community Harvest has also published the map for the 1st Annual Edible Garden Tour of West Seattle. It is a very diverse group of gardens, including a condo food jungle, a parking strip farm, permaculture gardens, community gardens, as well as more traditional backyard vegetable patches. Read more and get the addresses on www.gleanit.org/tour.html. Come get inspired August 2, 10 am-2 pm.

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West Seattle Garden Tour: 1 day, 9 gardens, infinite inspiration
July 15, 2008 5:03 pm
|    Comments Off on West Seattle Garden Tour: 1 day, 9 gardens, infinite inspiration
 |   Fun stuff to do | Gardening | West Seattle news

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(photo courtesy WestSeattleGardenTour.com)
That’s one of the nine gardens you’ll be able to tour this Sunday for the price of a $15 ticket to the West Seattle Garden Tour — with some of the proceeds benefiting nonprofits including ArtsWest and the Seattle Chinese Garden (full beneficiary list here). Tickets are on sale right now at several local businesses as well as online (this page has the list and the online-sales link) – and it’s economical to bring the family because kids 12 and under are free. Get a preview of the gardens here; info on guest speaker Cass Turnbull of PlantAmnesty is here.

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Urban harvest time: Even small gardens can make a big difference
July 6, 2008 3:33 pm
|      1 COMMENT
 |   Gardening | How to help | West Seattle religion | West Seattle video

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That little garden on West Seattle Christian Church (WSB sponsor) property by the Ginomai arts center has already produced dozens of pounds of food that’s been harvested and donated to people in need. We heard about it during one of the recent Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle presentations to the Delridge and Southwest District Councils. It’s cared for by Aaron Hernandez, who handles the WSCC grounds ministry; he talked to us about what’s known as “Psomizo Garden“ while he and his daughter were there for one of their frequent harvesting/tending sessions a couple days ago:

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That’s just one of many food-growing gardens in West Seattle, on a variety of scales – there are also P-Patches and the High Point Market Garden, to name a few, plus Longfellow Creek Garden, which we told you about earlier this year, also has just announced it’s harvest time and is inviting those who have volunteered there to come ‘n’ get it (previous progress chronicled at the LCG blog). Back to Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle – it’s also still looking for local fruit trees that its volunteers can harvest for distribution, and for more volunteers to help; contact info is on its website, where we find word that a volunteer orientation is set for one week from tomorrow. It’s also presenting the first-ever West Seattle Food Garden Tour, 10 am-2 pm August 2nd – free! (This page promises a map later this month.) P.S. You can keep up with the food-growing scene on a regional basis through one of the West Seattle-based sites linked from our Other Blogs in West Seattle page — Eating Locally in the Pacific Northwest.

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Welcoming a new WSB sponsor: Village Green Perennial Nursery
July 2, 2008 12:34 pm
|      13 COMMENTS
 |   Gardening | West Seattle businesses | West Seattle online

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The traditional WSB sponsor welcome goes out today to Village Green Perennial Nursery, featured in this month’s edition of Seattle Metropolitan Magazine as a “Community Treasure” (page 47!). Village Green is celebrating its 5th anniversary this year. Owner Vera Johnson is a fully organic gardener, specializing in perennials and old roses, growing with soils blended using compost made at Village Green. Of course, organic gardening doesn’t just involve the soil – it involves the rest of the ecosystem, and Vera and her staff extend their customer service to talking with customers about natural pest management, including knowing which plants atttract the “good bugs,” which in turn keep the “bad bugs” away. Village Green, in fact, has its own bee colony and three chickens who help keep potential pests in check. The plants Vera sells are all locally grown by independent growers; she notes that means you get fresher, livelier plants that will adapt more quickly to your garden. She also wants you to know she knows gardens and gardeners, and uses that knowledge in her approach to customer service. Village Green’s nursery grounds stretch out behind the green house you see at the upper right of the photo above; it’s at 10223 26th SW (map), phone 206/767-7735, open Thursdays-Sundays – hours are on this page of the Village Green website, which has a lot to explore. We thank Village Green Perennial Nursery and all WSB sponsors, listed on this page along with information on how to join them.

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West Seattle Wed. notes: Gardening, movies, TV, Rotary berries
June 18, 2008 9:05 am
|      14 COMMENTS
 |   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:

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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 “Heart of High Point” 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 — cleaned, hulled, & packed only in their own juices — 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

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