How do you move a garden? Part three: The Interbay P-Patch

 

"You don't just inherit dirt here, you inherit the past, whoever was there planting things." -- Donna Kalka, gardener

Sandwiched between 15th Avenue NW and the railroad tracks, in the cleft between the Queen Anne and Magnolia hills, lies a sort-of no man's land. Part tide lands, part low-lying swale, the Interbay area has been used for everything from a dump to a parking lot, to railroad yards and light industry, to athletic fields and golf courses.

And a P-Patch.

The Interbay P-Patch was founded in 1974, just one year after the start of the city's P-Patch program. In point of fact, informal gardening may have been going on for some time on the little used acres prior to the official opening. Some 47 acres of property were (and are) managed by the Seattle Parks Department; the P-Patch, on one acre at the heart of the site, was surrounded by athletic fields and a golf course. Squeezed on all sides, it was just a matter of time before, like Sand Point and Eastlake, the patch would be forced to fight for its life. However, unlike those two gardens, Interbay had to move not once, but twice.

Lowlands

The Interbay area was named for its location between Smith Cove, an arm of Elliott Bay, and Salmon Bay, on the Ship Canal. From the P-Patch today one can see huge cruise ships on the horizon at the Smith Cove terminal to the south. Fisherman's Terminal at Salmon Bay lies to the north. Active railroad tracks define the western boundary, while busy 15th Avenue West provide the eastern edge.

Early in the 20th century, the Olmsted Brothers landscape firm, hired by the city to design a parks system, recommended that the tidal lands at Smith Cove be filled to create athletic fields for " big boys and young men." The reasoning ran that "The big boys are usually better able to afford car fare to outlying parts of the city where larger ballfields can be afforded and where there are relatively fewer small boys." (1908 Olmsted Report to City of Seattle Parks Commission). Girls did not factor into the report in the context of ball games. 

It would be many decades before anything like the Olmsted vision became a reality at Interbay. Before that happened, a portion of the land became a small dump for ten years (1916-26). Subsequently the city purchased private lands in the area with a view to establishing a small municipal airport. When that project failed to materialize, the land was devoted again to dumping -- this time on a larger scale.

The five-room Interbay School opened in 1903 at 16th NW and Barrett Street; it was de-activated in 1939 and torn down in 1948. Control of the land was turned over to the parks department.

Early in the 1960s, the open dump was converted to the increasingly popular sanitary landfill model in which garbage piles are covered with soil every day. 

In 1962 a portion of the landfill was leveled to be used on a short-term basis for overflow parking for the Century 21 World's Fair down the road. A bit later, the sanitary fill gave way to athletic fields and a 9-hole public golf course with driving range and mini-golf course. 

At one point, Interbay was proposed as the site of the Kingdome. A site adjacent to Seattle's Chinatown/International District was selected instead.

Garbage piles up at the Interbay Dump, September 22, 1944. Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, Image #40412.

 This map, labeled "Smith Cove Sanitary Fill Area to be reserved for future airport site," shows the proposed airport outlined in heavy black. It is dated October 15, 1946. No such facility was built. Instead the area was returned to dumping. Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, Image #1162.

Looking down at Interbay from the Gilman Avenue incline, 1960. The open garbage dump has been converted to a sanitary fill opening up possibilities for other uses. The streets and the fill appear to be awash with rain water. Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, Image #29357.

Interbay landfill site converted to use as a parking lot, 1962. 

In the mid-1970s parks engineer Don Sherwood created one of his famous diagrams of Seattle's parks for Interbay. It depicts the golf facilities on the south end of the fill lands and ball fields on the north. The original p-patch is sketched in at middle-right. (Sherwood Files) According to Don Sherwood's notes, and depicted above, the small golf course and driving range existed for a few years from 1966 on the southern half of the property. The miniature golf course shown at lower left stood approximately where the current p-patch is today.

Laying sod on the Interbay Playfield on the north end of what is now the Interbay Athletic Complex, 1967. Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, Image #29344.

The First Move

For several years the gardeners at Interbay were left to tend their crops in peace. Then, in the late 1970s rumors began flying that the city hoped to, once again, redevelop the public golf course at Interbay, one that promised to be a vast improvement over the derelict Interbay Golf Park. The available site was huge -- about 47 acres -- and the p-patch, in the middle of the expanse, took up just a bit more than one of these. Nonetheless, it seemed that the small garden was in the way. In 1981, gardeners won a City Council resolution guaranteeing them one acre of garden space. Unfortunately, the exact location for that space was not specified.

One of the original patchers complained in a letter to the Seattle Times:

"Me, now, I've been working the same plot at Interbay for six years. Started with a pile of rocks and clay. You oughta see the soil now, dark and rich and producing enough to feed me and all the neighbors. Seems a shame that next year folks are going to be stomping through this fine soil with their golf clubs. Didn't know they needed such grand soil for golfing." (Grace E. Carpenter, July 11, 1979.)

After several years of negotiation and protest, in 1992, the p-patch moved to the Northeast corner of the landfill site. Gardeners did most of the heavy lifting, ferrying their precious soil and plants over to the new site in wheelbarrows. Interbay Two (or New Interbay) lasted only four years before it was again threatened by the plans for the yet-to-be-built new golf course. Once again, the p-patchers manned the barricades!

The Second Move

Incensed by the threatened move so soon after the last one, gardeners took a proactive stance, orchestrating a campaign that included media outreach, circulation of a short documentary about the peril to the garden, and many, many phone calls to the city council. Long time gardener and site coordinator Ray Schutte remembers urging his fellow patchers to be relentless:

"I said we have to build our defense very slowly and timely. And I bored them to death by playing Bolero at top volume on my little boombox in the garden until they begged -- we get the message! Don't have to tell us anymore. So we basically, by the hundreds across the city, tied up the lines to the city council. I remember one council person told me afterwards, she says, 'You know, it was insane. That's all we did was answer the phone all day long cause there were hundreds of people calling."

Despite the effort, the final council vote regarding the p-patch, was 5 to 4 in favor of moving again. However, the group was able to leverage the publicity they had gotten into a highly favorable and formal agreement with the city, an agreement that included

• Being able to choose their own site
• Substantial funds to pay for the move
• Physical assistance for the move
• New soil to replace the clay cover
• Raised beds; and
• An irrigation system.

In many respects, the new garden site, in the sunny southeastern corner of the fill, was superior to the previous one. For one thing, it was not directly behind the driving range as once planned!

Down to the Soil

Much work remained to be done at the new site. The soil provided by the city was sterile, without the living organisms necessary to organic gardening. It was up to the gardeners to augment it with compost and liquid fish emulsions. A year later they rejoiced each time someone found a worm in their patch:

"They would pick it up hold it up into the air and shout WORM! And everybody would come over and look at it." (Ray Schutte)

With help from the parks department, the garden was able to recycle materials from other sites. Old paving stones from Alki Beach were used to make the main paths in the garden, along with granite pavers that could not be used at Westlake Plaza. A flag pole from the World's Fair flag pavilion was planted at the gathering space.  A greenhouse was donated by a neighbor selling his property. 

Many more improvements and artistic touches have been added to what is now, hopefully, the permanent home of this 132-plot p-patch, one of the jewels of the program. 

An enormous cruise ship at the Smith Cover terminal appears to be just a stone's throw from the garden. 2022.

An old acetylene tank, a gift from a local business, is repurposed into a "gathering bell," calling folks to communal meals. 2022.

Tall net fencing separates the garden from the golf course. Stray balls do come through often and are given to golfing gardeners to "recycle." 2022.

Thanks to Ray Schutte, Donna Kalka, and Jude Berman for their oral history interviews.

This post is a part of the Seattle Community Gardening History Project. 

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