Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Vegetable gardens crop up in Seattle parking strips
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009535078_parkingstrips25m.html

The Seattle City Council is working to increase availability of affordable, 
locally grown food. One approach: allowing folks to grow vegetable gardens in 
parking strips — the no man's land between sidewalk and curb.

We've all heard the foodie mantra: Eat Local.

It's going gangbusters in grocery stores that increasingly tout local 
produce. Now, area government has gotten involved, too.

No, the City Council isn't pushing expensive arugula. Instead, it's trying to 
increase the availability of locally grown food, especially for those least 
able to afford it.

"I think there's a real transformation happening," said Branden Born, 
assistant professor of urban design and planning at the University of 
Washington.

Some of this shift involves research projects and nonbinding resolutions, 
which are essentially invisible to ordinary citizens. But for tangible 
evidence — actual growing evidence — you need look no further than the lowly 
curb in front of your home.

It used to be that planting anything but grass in the strip between the 
sidewalk and the curb required a permit, even if it was just a spray of 
flowers or a few carrots. For hardscaping, like steppingstones or raised 
beds, fees averaging $225 were attached, too. Would-be gardeners routinely 
called the city to complain.

This year, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) changed its rules. 
Now, no permit is required for parking-strip vegetable gardens. While 
hardscaping still requires a permit, it's easy to get and free of charge, 
said Rick Sheridan, spokesman for SDOT.

Last year, the city issued 22 permits for parking-strip gardens. This year, 
they've issued 52, and that's for hardscaping alone. There's no telling how 
many people have taken advantage of the new no-permit rules for simple 
vegetation.

"We get the sense that people are really embracing it," Sheridan said.

'Eat your yard'

Gardener Jake Harris, for one, couldn't wait, and immediately planted a 
veritable cornucopia in front of his University District home. In addition, 
Harris' company, Cascadian Edible Landscapes, has installed raised beds for a 
half-dozen other Seattleites eager to capture the unobstructed sunlight that 
parking strips offer.

Harris says his mantra is "eat your yard." And the demand in Seattle, he 
said, is "pretty huge."

"We're looking for every way possible for people who want to plant food to be 
able to do so," said Rob Gala, an aide to City Council President Richard 
Conlin, who is leading the charge. "And the closer it is to their house, the 
better."

Parking strips, however visible, are just a small part of larger changes, 
Born said. He sees hope in the research projects, grants and policy decisions 
that are aimed at broadening the local food movement.

It's not just a matter of what people put in their mouths. It's about the 
environment and economic development, social justice and long-term 
health-care costs, community building and livability.

Last year, when the Seattle City Council passed a nonbinding "local food 
initiative," some were skeptical that it would amount to any real change. But 
there has been progress.

Officials began studying city codes and policies through the lens of healthy 
eating goals. Do land-use codes have an impact on people's ability to eat 
healthy food? Should developers get open-space credits for food gardens?

It was quickly clear that city policies created impediments for farmers 
markets. Convinced that these markets offer numerous benefits, the city made 
permits cheaper and made it easier to site markets in the street and in city 
parks. Chris Curtis, director of the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance, 
said she's now optimistic about finding permanent locations for several 
markets that were in danger of losing their leases on private property. She's 
even talking to Sound Transit about locating one along the new light-rail 
line.

"I don't think we would have ever had some of these conversations with 
policymakers 10 years ago," Curtis said.

City departments are beginning to ask new questions. Are kids getting healthy 
food in after-school programs? At community centers? The city Parks and 
Recreation Department is working on that. It's also creating "learning 
gardens" to teach kids about growing food and eating healthy.

"It's a long-term strategy to increase access to healthy food, particularly 
in disadvantaged communities," said Phyllis Shulman, an aide to Conlin.

In addition, city and county officials are looking at creating incentives to 
preserve county farmland through a new program allowing rural property owners 
to transfer their development rights to urban areas, which are viewed as 
better able to support high-density development.

In another multiagency venture, local activists feel they're finally getting 
traction in their efforts to create a food policy council that will bring 
together an array of interests that have connections — some of them less 
obvious than others — with healthy eating. They'll talk about everything from 
transportation — do public transit issues make it harder for people to get to 
the grocery store? — to the environment to public health.

Support for homegrown

The big news in food circles last week was that Seattle will receive a 
$300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a variety of 
projects aimed at increasing urban agriculture and improving access to 
healthy food in low-income communities. Solid Ground is the lead agency on 
the grant, but several city and county offices are involved and will 
contribute matching funds.

The grant will be used to create additional community gardens, which will 
produce food not only for the gardeners themselves but for local food banks. 
In addition, the grant will pay for gardening and nutrition education at 
community and senior centers and for projects aimed at getting healthy food 
into convenience stores, where some low-income residents are forced, by dint 
of proximity, to shop.

Local food also figured in last year's parks levy, which included $2 million 
for new community gardens and P-Patches, particularly in underserved areas. 
The popular P-Patch program has a waiting list of 1,900 people.

"It's almost an urban back-to-the-land-movement," Born said, adding that it's 
not just about growing food. "Community gardens look rather quaint on the 
surface. But you get into them and you see they're a powerful transformative 
element."

Mount Baker resident Don Comstock knows that. An avid gardener, he began 
planting vegetables in his sunny parking strip and found neighbors routinely 
stopping by to chat. He invited neighbors to plant their own vegetables in 
his strip, which he blocked off nicely into plots.

"I've been doing this in my backyard for years, but by moving it out front, 
it's become much more of a public awareness thing," he said. "It's really a 
great move to build neighborhood."

And besides, he said, "I'd much rather be eating food that doesn't have to be 
trucked 1,000 miles to me."

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com



Information

Gardening in parking strips:

www.seattle.gov/transportation/cams/cam2305.pdf

Online permitting for parking-strip gardens:

www.seattle.gov/transportation/stuse_permits_online.htm