HALLER LAKE
13045 1st Ave. NE, Seattle

Winner of three awards at 2002's Harvest Banquet, Haller Lake P-Patch draws community garden fans and neighbors out for a walk. Its unique design features diagonal paths leading from the inviting entrance arbors to the covered community area, large garden shed, and solar-powered fountain. A spectacular dahlia hedge and espaliered fruit trees form two borders. Herb, butterfly, and children's gardens are additional attractions. www.ci.seattle.wa.us/neighborhoods/ppatch/locations/37.htm

JACKSON PARK 10th NE & NE 133rd, Seattle

The Jackson Park community garden, just south of the golf course, sits atop a beautiful ridge overlooking Thornton Creek and a long stretch of "green belt." A huge stand of second growth forest is home to many creatures: coyotes, bald eagles, hawks, wood-peckers, and maybe a beaver below on the creek. Year round the garden is a quiet sanctuary for sentient beings of all kinds.

The gardeners at Pinehurst P-Patch had always prided themselves on the beauty of their abundant garden: the red lettuce planted in a checkerboard with the green, the communal herb bed bordered in colorful flowers, the overflowing loads of vegetables delivered to Neighbors in Need, the neatly barked paths, the freshly turned compost. They worked closely to build the best small community garden in the nation, according to the judges of the American Community Gardening Association.

Then, one summer the owners of the site decided to sell to a developer. The bulldozers stood ready to level this prize winning garden. Blind optimism, flavored with large doses of hard work, petitions, TV stories, baskets of vegetables delivered with appeal letters-- all these played a part in saving the garden. The developer deeded one lot to the P-Patch Advisory Council, and it became the first owned and permanently protected garden.

 And then came the work: moving plants out of the way of surrounding development. The Pinehurst gardeners revel in the knowledge that the garden is forever, maybe not for themselves, but for all the gardeners who will have the opportunity to "grow their own" for many years to come! Today it provides a quiet respite for visitors to eat lunch nestled among the flowers, for children to visit from the nearby school, and for a host of scarecrows to watch over the bees buzzing between the berries. Peace reigns in the P-Patch.