Neighborhood Garden Tour & BBQ – April 29

Join the Howell Collective P-Patch as we sow the seeds of community.

On April 29, 2012 we invite the community to learn about and celebrate the urban agricultural movement taking place in public spaces throughout Seattle. We will meet at the Seven Hills Park for a walking/biking tour of local gardens in and around Capitol Hill then return to the Howell Collective P-Patch for a tour and BBQ.

10:00-12:00: Walking/Biking tour of local community gardens
12:00-3:00: Howell Collective P-Patch tour and BBQ

This event will also kick off our logo design contest. Submit your garden logo ideas on April 29th and check back in for details, we plan on presenting our winning logo at our summer harvest festival.

The Howell Collective P-Patch is located in Seven Hills Park on E. Howell St and 16th Ave. All are welcome to join and encouraged to bring a dish to pass at the BBQ.

The event will carry on rain or shine. For more information contact howellcollective@gmail.com or visit www.facebook.com/events/215649655211097/ for the latest event updates.

Community garden piece, Nichole Poinski

I recently attended a lecture given by Eric Liu, former deputy domestic policy advisor for President Bill Clinton. Liu spoke to civics in Seattle, and inflated my Seattlite ego by explaining the type of thinking that threads through the people of my city. He called it “ecosystem thinking,” a notion that we are all connected, an awareness of the environment around us. He embodied this type of thinking with the “garden brain,” which I imagine resembles a cauliflower.

Liu started speaking to the abundance of gardens and green spaces in Seattle. I have the privilege to be able to collect dirt under my fingernails at one of these green spaces as a member of the Howell Collective, a community garden at 16^th Ave E and E Howell Street on Capitol Hill, made possible by the Neighborhood Matching Fund, Pro Parks Levy and Department of Neighborhoods P-Patch Department. Our model encourages cooperation, community and the “bringing together of neighbors and nature.” Which is all well and good, but how does it work?

As a collective, we have clung to that basic tenet that creates community: the sharing of knowledge. In partnership with Seattle Tilth, the Howell Collective hosts classes free and open to the public. We then host work parties for those who could not make the class to simultaneously share what we’ve learned and build our garden. One Saturday morning was spent digging trenches, breaking up obstacles with bare hands and sweating salt back into the earth. Like All Quiet on the Western Front, but less sad.

We use collective learning and sharing as a driving part of our model and the main feature of what makes us “communal.” We use our “garden brains” to grow our garden, together.

Liu closed his lecture with, “Every one of us is a garden, to weed, to feed, to seed.” While at first this sentiment tastes saccharine, I take it to heart. By weeding, feeding and seeding the garden, I am doing the same for my community, my soul, my sense of self. Interconnected with those around me, cultivating connections, and perhaps cauliflower.