by Robert Graef
Pea-patch gardening is coming to Marysville. The site lies in the 9300 block of 67th Avenue. Look for the White barn. The land, bequested to Bethlehem Lutheran Church by longtime Marysville attorney Bly Wilcox, should be ready for planting late this spring. Now home to a flock of sheep, the land offers a well, fertile soil and ample parking. Anyone interested in reserving a plot should call Bethlehem Lutheran at 360-659-2022 or email a note with your contact information to office@bethlehemlutheran.com.
Rules for Marysville’s pea-patch have yet to be drafted but it is certain that natural or organic gardening practices will be required. “Natural” gardening limits the use of chemicals to ensure that vegetables and fruits won’t pose health threats. Organic gardeners have figured out how to do without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. Naturally occurring fungicides such as copper sulfate and sulfur are okay. Nicotine and rotenone pass the organic test but most plant foods and chemicals found in garden stores are forbidden. Since chemicals used on one plot may show up in the produce of neighboring plots, pea-patch gardeners necessarily hold to a single code. With chemical warfare forbidden, weeds and walkways must be controlled the hard way.
The community garden movement springs from deep roots. It covers the breadth of the nation, drawing from the old concept of the Village Commons. European immigrants recall gardening in “allotment gardens.” Asian families seem to revel in making things grow. And many of our retired citizens recall how most families dealt with food shortages during WWII by growing Victory Gardens.
No one knows for sure where the more recent pea-patch garden idea first took root. Seattle, home to 60 pea-patch developments, claims the “p” in pea-patch is a memorial to the work of Rainie Picard whose family lent their land to gardeners back in the ‘70s. In the years since, Seattle’s program has grown to serve over 1,900 gardeners.
A new condo complex in Burien advertises roof-top garden plots for flowers or vegetables. Thirty-two pea-patch garden plots lie beside Bremerton’s Sylvan Way and thirty two Bremerton gardeners are anxiously waiting for sunshine to sufficiently warm the soil there. King County Parks has plotted 2.1 tilled-up acres in Marymoor Park for 80 or more gardeners. Whereas a town’s pea-patch plots may be as small as 8×8, Kent offers 20×20 plots, more than enough space to supply a family with all the carrots, lettuce, peppers, peas, cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes and onions they can eat. And of course a surplus of zucchinis.
Some pea-patch developments began with suggestions about what might be done with slivers and wedges of unbuildable land. North Everett’s gardens near the foot of 21st Street and above the tracks is one of those. The city brought in soil and furnished a stand-pipe for water. Users agree to donate a certain number of hours to the general upkeep of the site. Gardeners pay a small annual fee to rent plots for the season and agree to a set of rules that ensures fair play for all.
Where community garden programs have caught hold, gardeners find themselves making new friends while swapping gardening tips. Cooperation blooms as tillers of neighboring plots say, I’ll grow the potatoes if you’ll share your onions. Pest and disease control is a constant challenge because enough pea-patch gardeners are of the organic persuasion to keep noxious chemicals off the site.
Pea-patch gardening helps to draw a food source closer to home. A study of where our food comes from determined that the average calorie on our plates travels more than 1,400 miles to arrive in Marysville. What we get is about as fresh as I feel after traveling 1,400 miles.
Pea-patch gardens are especially rewarding for young families. Children are delighted to discover that some flowers are edible, that sunflowers grow so tall that one needs a ladder to reach the blossoms, that monster plants eat bugs. Gardening with kids of any age encourages interest in nature and when mom or dad explains how certain different plants benefit from growing near each other, the idea of ecosystems suddenly becomes more vivid than what is learned from books.
Children are quick to offer ideas about what a family’s garden should grow and how it should be arranged. Family gardening offers what teachers call, teachable moments. Dealing with seeds and weeds and watering brings kids into immediate relationships with their very own community of plants. If they take responsibility, the fruits of their labor end up on the dinner table in a perfect example of positive-feedback. Lessons in giving grow from helping to collect surplus produce for transport to food banks.
When this winter finally gives up to spring, racks of seed packets will appear in shops. Newspapers will come stuffed with flyers from gardening stores. Gardeners will stoop to collect handfuls of soil, testing it for crumbliness. Winter soil is too cold and gummy for seeds. There is a particular feel to how a clod crumbles that signals that planting time is just around the corner. Time to restart the miracle of turning tiny seeds into healthy edibles.
Comments may be sent to: rgraef@verizon.net
