Panorama Architect, Marsha Tolon, displays on her 33 years as a P-Patch member and the common language of gardening
Marsha Tolon, Burke-Gilman P-Patch
What sparked your curiosity in gardening?
After I was a child, our household would go to the grocery retailer, and I might at all times go to the journal aisle and take a look at gardening and flower magazines like Sundown Western Backyard. I’d learn them whereas all people else was buying and that type of continued into highschool. I grew up in Everett, and even there we had Future Farmers of America, FFA, so I joined that. On this aspect of the mountains, it’s extra horticulture targeted, however we had some forestry courses at our highschool. In order that acquired me hooked, and I attempted making a vegetable backyard at dwelling. From there I simply had that curiosity in serious about horticulture in my profession. However I didn’t work on that a part of my schooling till graduate college the place I studied panorama structure. I had that in my background, however I nonetheless needed to backyard so, that’s what introduced me to the P-Patch Program.
How lengthy have you ever been concerned within the P-Patch program?
I’ve been a part of the P-Patch system for 33 years! I began out on the Interbay P-Patch then acquired a plot nearer to the place I used to be residing up on Phinney Ridge. My dream was at all times to have my very own backyard at my home, however I simply loved the neighborhood gardening. After I moved right here, the encompassing housing improvement and the Kids’s Heart weren’t constructed but. When the development plans for the housing improvement have been completed, I had the chance to assist with the backyard in drafting the structure, determining the place the water traces would go, how the plots can be aligned, simply designing a basic structure and web site plan. That in 93’ or 94’, then I acquired a plot and I’ve been on this backyard since then. Round that point, I went by means of the King County Grasp Gardener program, and served on the board for a few years. As a result of this backyard itself is likely one of the smaller ones, you type of put on numerous completely different hats. It’s been possibly for the final 5 – 6 years that I’ve co-facilitated with one other particular person. Different individuals have worn the management hat, and I simply at all times tried to meet help with Grasp Gardner data and different issues that have been in my ability set.
How has the backyard helped you meet and work together with individuals you won’t in any other case cross paths with?
This backyard, due to the housing complicated and proximity to the College of Washington, has numerous households from different international locations and worldwide college students. I’ve simply seen the world come by means of right here. These plots right here [pointing to nearby garden beds], the gardeners are from Vietnam, and from China over there, and Nepal. We’ve had somebody from Iceland who was simply right here learning for a short interval, however they wanted the outlet of gardening. Visiting professors from Minnesota, right here for only a 12 months and a half, however wanted to have an area to backyard for no different purpose than to search out neighborhood. After which the housing improvement, all the children which might be round plus the preschool. I do know I ought to consider them in another way, however I consider them as crops, this crop of youngsters. That plot [pointing across the garden] the one with the Dahlias, is the preschools’ P-Patch. I had a piece good friend who had her daughters there and I keep in mind providing her some inexperienced beans and she or he’d simply chow them down like no one’s enterprise. They weren’t washed or ready or something, however individuals similar to having the ability to eat proper from the P-Patch and that’s type of enjoyable.
You meet individuals from varied backgrounds and varied pursuits and that half is wonderful. I get to be taught the other ways completely different individuals develop meals and the way artful they’re utilizing no matter they’ll discover to make the issues that we would purchase, like tomato cages. Though English is probably not the device we will use to talk to at least one one other, gardening has been that common language. It simply demonstrates to me that the backyard is the world. It’s a microcosm of society and the whole lot that occurs inside a neighborhood; how we work collectively to woodchip the paths and contribute at our work events; how we get to know each other and share info; and the way we work by means of battle. There are all these various things happening that you need to deal with as a result of we’re all human.
Why do you assume areas like this backyard are essential?
It’s an lively method of expressing oneself and expressing who’s there at that second in time. I simply assume that these sorts of areas are like respiratory portals. Areas the place the neighborhood can exhale and inhale in a spot that’s not overly developed, however there’s lots happening if you happen to select to see it and luxuriate in it. I give it some thought as respiratory, whereas bodily buildings are very static, that is at all times altering.
It’s so satisfying to come back to this area on a heat summer time’s day or after a protracted day at work, within the night and it’s mild and it’s nonetheless. Typically individuals are chattering, otherwise you hear individuals on the Burke-Gilman Path having fun with themselves, and different occasions you simply hear individuals gardening and hanging out of their plot, doing their very own factor. It’s very peaceable. I don’t know why; you simply see extra smiles when individuals are leaving. Even when they’re speeding in simply to water or one thing, it’s a second in nature and that’s a pleasant feeling. I cherish having the ability to come to my area and hang around with different gardeners and share ideas and concepts. There’s nothing extra fulfilling.
