Solstice P-Patch

(This is a 2017 garden description. Gardens for this year’s tour can be found here.)

This beautiful hillside community garden, established in 2003 as part of the Southwest neighborhood under Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, was built on fill from the Mt. Baker Tunnel. The 34 plots, built and terraced by the gardeners with stack blocks, contain herbs, vegetables, fruit trees, berries, and perennials. Also on the grounds are a communal tool shed, composting stations, patio area, and viewing bench, purchased with funds from a previous West Seattle Garden Tour.

The P-Patch is a small community of 34 gardeners with a common goal to garden organically. They each pay $43 per year for the plot and donate 8 hours a season to the common areas of the garden, which include a perennial garden, fruit trees and patches of blueberries and raspberries. Every year they collectively donate 1,000-2,000 pounds of produce to the food bank. They hold festivals with plant and baked goods for sale.

Some unique plants to look for on your visit are horehound, Teddy Bear sunflowers and lovage, which attracts bees. In the past couple years some apple trees were saved by the members of the Seattle Green Spaces Coalition, in the hope that these trees are the Akane variety which was originally produced in Aomori, Japan and imported to the United States in 1937. It will take another growing season to accurately identify the trees because they are so old. They have been grafted onto root stock and grow here in the Solstice P-Patch. Once the trees are established, three of them will go to the International District.

Wheelchair accessible on gravel paths; some paths are steep.