Seattle Temple Corps Partners With Seattle Tilth Foundation To Revitalize Community Garden
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"If you give a family a bunch of organic kale, they will eat for a day, but if you teach them to grow organic kale, they can actually grow 650 dollars worth of organic produce in a year, from just three garden beds." - Derek Farmer, Just Garden coordinator, Seattle Tilth
Tilth - The cultivation of land or the condition of tilled soil, especially in respect to suitability for sowing seeds. Source: Oxford Dictionary
A new partnership between the Seattle Temple Corps and Seattle Tilth is bringing fresh opportunities for growing organic produce in the Greenwood area. Designated as a community garden, a portion of the playground area between the corps building and the Silvercrest senior housing next door has been set aside for the new project. On one recent Saturday, a group of nearly 30 volunteers spent the morning cleaning, weeding and revitalizing two existing 4'x8' growing beds, as well as building and installing a third, raised bed which is ADA-compliant.
The genesis of the garden project was a meeting of representatives from The Salvation Army and Seattle Tilth at the Greenwood Brown Bag Lunch. Meeting on the fourth Wednesday of every month, the lunch is an opportunity for non-profit leaders, business leaders and city council representatives to gather, collaborate and help one another on their goals and projects. At the January meeting, Marlena Nip, Food & Faith Coordinator shared with the group about the work of Seattle Tilth, including the Just Garden program and the Food & Faith Initiative:
"Seattle Tilth feeds into the whole local food system. We start off with our gardening programs, growing food. We have soil building classes because that's how we grow food - building healthy soil. From there we have our farming programs growing food on a larger scale - like our farm incubator program, which teaches people how to grow and the agriculture experience. Through that we're able to grow produce for our community supported agriculture program and then we have our environmental programs which are doing restoration and conservation work. And then we have our cooking programs so we can teach people how to use their fresh produce, because we find that a lot of times people don't know how to use it."
Major Rob Reardon was in attendance that day, and after lunch he approached Marlena in hopes of talking further about community gardening:
"I immediately gave her my card and we started talking about the possibilities. And now we're making our build. When my wife, Major Amy Reardon, and I were in Seattle eleven years ago, we built a garden at The Salvation Army's Camp Arnold in Eatonville. We involved the campers in gardening and harvesting strawberries, corn, zucchini, raspberries, and all kinds of herbs. This has been a dream of ours to involve the congregation - and the community really - in a gardening project where the fruit of our labor will be able to be distributed amongst all the people."
The community garden project represents a renewal of the original gardening program, which was started approximately 10-15 years ago. At one time, the gardens were very popular and active, but in recent years, they have laid fallow and unattended. Even so, some people still remember when the gardens were a vibrant part of the program offerings at the Seattle Temple Corps, Silvercrest and Little People Day Care. Former day care Director, Mileene Bryant, remembers the gardens this way:
"The kids loved it, of course, when it was just boxes of dirt. The garden was good because many of them didn't have a clue where food came from. The parents loved it and really got involved, as did people from the Silvercrest residence, who would come down and give advice. One year, we even applied for a grant to get some "Zoo Doo" from the Woodland Park Zoo. We went over to the zoo and loaded it up in a truck in the fall and completely covered the garden. It was just great.
We grew a lot of things. We grew some things up on the fence and the little kids would go by and pick things off. We grew tomatoes, cucumbers, a lot of tall things like peas and beans, because we could grow them right on the fence and the kids could pick them off. They would harvest the vegetables and bring them to the cook who would make things. We had carrots and beets and Swiss chard and radishes because they grow fast. It was just a normal garden but the kids enjoyed it a lot."
Today, the garden at the Seattle Temple Corps represents one of six garden builds in north Seattle, and the plan is for all six entities to meet for collaboration and information sharing. Seattle Tilth has generously provided plant starts - chives, spinach, and kale - to get the garden started, and the Corps will be responsible to provide an inventory of what is grown and harvested, as well as how the produce is used. It is hoped that in the years to come, Seattle Tilth will partner with the corps again to build additional gardens.
About Seattle Tilth
Seattle Tilth started in 1978 as an organization aimed at furthering organic agriculture in all forms from gardening to farming. The Just Garden program, and Food & Faith Initiative, became programs in recent years to improve food security. Over 20% of kids in King County are food-insecure which means they risk going to bed hungry on any given night of the week.
Today - as part of the Seattle Tilth - these programs help families with low incomes build food gardens. Seattle Tilth also requires that all produce grown in their garden builds be organically grown with no pesticides or chemical based supplements used the in growing process. The gardens at the Seattle Temple corps will be completely organic gardens.
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The continued work of The Salvation Army relies on the generosity of donors. If you would like to help us provide programs such as community gardens, food banks and nutrition programs, as well as other vital services, please consider making an online donation today. Your donation will stay within your community to fund much-needed community programs for those in need. Every donation you make helps The Salvation Army continue "Doing The Most Good" today and in the future.
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