Volunteers Needed: Tend Seedlings in Wallingford

Remember the fantastic volunteer crew from the Wallingford Greenhouse? They're going into their fifth season of growing thousands of veggie starts in a beautiful backyard in lower Wallingford. Thanks to this partnership, at Lettuce Link we're able to share the starts to Giving Gardeners around the city, who then turn those starts into an abundance of fresh, local vegetables for food banks.

They're currently recruiting volunteers for the Spring 2013 Season!

The fifth season of the amazing greenhouse project, A Growing Community, will begin soon. Thanks to Cyrus for once again volunteering his Wallingford greenhouse for this endeavor. As a reminder, last year you helped grow 4,000 starts that were donated to giving gardens, yielding lots and lots of fresh veggies and herbs for the food banks in our communities. Because of you, kids and grown-ups were able to eat healthier.

A Growing Community is looking for volunteers to help in our Wallingford and Ballard greenhouses. The commitment is one day per week from March through June, approximately one hour per visit. The reward is digging in the dirt in a beautiful setting, learning about gardening, meeting your neighbors and knowing that because of your work, people will be eating healthier this summer.

A number of different volunteer positions are needed: daily volunteers to plant, transplant, water and otherwise care for the starts; daily managers to help coordinate the volunteers and determine the growing schedule, a communications/volunteer coordinator in Ballard; and a driver in Wallingford to move the starts to a centralized distribution center in Interbay.

There will be a seed-starting workshop for the Ballard Greenhouse on Saturday, February 16 at 2pm, and one for the Wallingford Greenhouse at Solid Ground on Saturday, February 23 at 10am. Then the growing will begin in earnest shortly after that.  

If you’re interested in any of these roles or want to learn more, contact Abby at abbyklingbeil@gmail.com, let her know your preferred location and days to volunteer, and make plans to attend a seed-starting workshop in the coming weeks. Attendance at a seed-starting workshop is encouraged but not necessary. 

Starting Seeds, Tending Plants and Building Community

On a recent blustery Saturday morning, over 20 enthusiastic volunteers gathered at Solid Ground to learn the ins and outs of starting seeds and caring for seedlings. These fine folks are the worker bees behind the volunteer-driven Wallingford and Ballard greenhouses, growing vegetable starts for Lettuce Link this season.

Last year, the Wallingford Greenhouse crew grew 4,900 plant starts! These starts went out to 30 different P-Patch giving gardens, as well as to community gardens and low-income gardeners all over the city.  With those starts, P-Patch gardeners grew over 20,000 pounds of vegetables for food banks and meal programs around Seattle. What a gift! 

Many thanks go to our veteran volunteers Cameron and Agnes for leading the seed-starting demonstration, and all those dedicating their time to tend seedlings this spring .

Want to get involved in the 2012 efforts? A few volunteer spots remain for this amazing community project in Wallingford!

In a beautiful backyard in lower Wallingford, there's a greenhouse where volunteers grow thousands of veggie starts each year for Lettuce Link.

If you like to get your hands dirty, help people and meet your neighbors, please consider volunteering. We need about five more volunteers to reach our ideal numbers (four volunteers per day). The commitment is approximately one hour one day per week for planting, watering and transplanting the starts. We gather for potlucks at least a couple times during the growing season. Volunteering begins immediately and will continue until June. 

Interested? E-mail lettucelink@solid-ground.org for more information. 

Giving Gardeners: Cyrus Appell and Growing Food, Growing Community

The array of people dedicated to local food systems, gardening, and food access continues to propel Seattle's Year of Urban Agriculture. At Lettuce Link, we're blessed to work with dynamic community volunteers.

In Wallingford, for example, volunteers with Growing Food, Growing Community grow vegetable starts for Lettuce Link to distribute to Seattle's Giving Gardens and food bank clients.

Cyrus Appell, Sue Hartman, and Abby Klingbeil organized Growing Food, Growing Community two years ago after a Sustainable Wallingford meeting. Cyrus hosts the volunteer project at his backyard greenhouse. Come spring, it bursts with green lettuce sprouts, tiny tomatoes that crowd the top shelves, and snap peas hardening off outside the greenhouse doors.

Wallingford Greenhouse

Cyrus gives his time each spring in greenhouse management and plant care along with offering his home to the cause. His commitment to growing and giving stems from years of community involvement around Seattle. "Community grows to support each other," notes Cyrus, "it inspires people to work together in a great diversity of activities." This support provides hundreds of starts for growing and giving efforts in Seattle.

This past season, Lettuce Link was able to request that volunteers grow culturally appropriate types of vegetables for food bank clients. "It was important to have the communication link" notes Cyrus, "we understood what they wanted." Cyrus witnessed first hand the results of growing culturally appropriate seeds through his volunteer work at a free medical clinic in Lake City upstairs from the food bank. "Some of the patients were carrying vegetables that we'd grown the starts for" says Cyrus, "It's exciting to see the end result."

Growing in the greenhouse

In addition to growing plants, the group is growing community, knowledge, and skills. Volunteers come with a range of gardening experience. Through weekly assignments in the greenhouse, they learn about seed starting, transplanting, and plant care. Next season, several volunteers are taking on leadership roles. This will help sustain the project, and allows volunteers to learn more about plant care and management.

In 2010, volunteers from Wallingford donated over 1,500 starts. Cyrus sees the vision growing, "it could be that we have five or six greenhouses scattered around Seattle that would produce for Giving Gardens, teach classes, and facilitate more gardens in Seattle with a strong emphasis on organic growing and community sharing," he muses. Though resources can be tight, its amazing what can be accomplished when volunteers come together.

"With poor economic times, having a local, community based food production resource as well as other cooperative ventures may become a vital component of our community's viability," notes Cyrus. With Growing Food, Growing Community, volunteers are bringing their skills and passion to care for one another and their community.

If you're interested in growing starts for food banks or P-Patch Giving Gardens, we'd love to hear from you: lettucelink@solid-ground.org. Cyrus Appell is also happy to talk about starting a greenhouse project in your neighborhood cyrusappell714@gmail.com

Tomatoes getting ready to go.

-Sadie Beauregard, Lettuce Link

Sending Out a Start

Starts grown by Wallingford's Growing Food, Growing Community are going out to P-Patch Giving Gardeners this week: lettuce, pac choi, spinach, and peas!

Growing in the greenhouse

Volunteers from Wallingford's Growing Food, Growing Community are growing 100s of starts for giving gardens this season. Little sprouts are coming up in the greenhouse. Once they have their "true leaves" they'll be transplanted into 4" pots, grow a little more, and make their way to the garden.

little spinach.

The "true leaves" are just coming out on this spinach. After a plant has its true leaves, the "seed" or cotyledon leaves will eventually turn yellow and fall off.

baby pak choi.

tomatoes getting ready to go.

Seeds start out on the heating pads. Once they sprout volunteers move the trays to other shelves to make room for more.

Where it all "starts"

In one month (all before spring is officially here) we've seen a host of gardening projects pop up around the Sound. The City of Seattle declared 2010 the Year of Urban Agriculture, Will Allen wowed the town, The Garden Project began, and a day of gardening through Spring into Bed is in the works - just to name a few.

Personally, I've begun to experience the power of community projects and gardening with a Wallingford neighborhood group - Growing Food, Growing Community, a subset of Sustainable Wallingford. Take a backyard greenhouse, dynamic neighbors, seeds, soil, labor, and love and you find the origin of tons (literally, tons) of fresh produce for Seattle food banks.

In 2009, Cyrus Appell, Abby Klingbeil, and other Wallingford volunteers approached Lettuce Link with a grand idea -- to grow vegetable starts in Cyrus' backyard greenhouse for use at Lettuce Link's Giving Garden at Marra Farm and to distribute to Giving Gardens around the city.

Over the spring, they grew approximately 2,500 starts. This one greenhouse was the origin of a good percentage of the 27,000 pounds of fresh produce that P-Patch gardeners grew and donated to Seattle food banks in 2009.

With Sue Hartman and a host of great volunteers on board for 2010, they're gearing up for the coming season. Last Saturday, volunteers met at Solid Ground to talk logistics, inspiration and seed starting. Volunteers will be growing peas, lettuce, tomatoes, and herbs (to name a few) for P-Patch giving gardeners this season.

There's clearly power in community and gardening. One greenhouse, a handful of volunteers, a bunch of seeds, and voila - a start of food for those who really need it.

Lettuce Link also receives starts from P-Patch gardeners, Seattle schools, and Seattle Tilth among others. Would you like to grow starts for Lettuce Link and Seattle's giving gardeners? Let us know! We'd love to hear from you.

-Sadie Beauregard, Lettuce Link, Harvest VISTA
Nicole Brodeur of the Seattle Times profiled the greenhouse group last summer. Read her great column, "Gardening in Tough Times", from June 12, 2009.