EVERETT — The developers altered their building plans so the P-patch would get full sun. They ran a water hose to the cucumbers and asked the hardhats to tread lightly through the fava beans.
"I have known business people, and I know every day costs money," said Gem Hunter, manager of the P-patch. "But I have never known anybody to do this."
"They saved half the P-patch. They helped out the gardeners who were displaced."
When developers Leonard Bluhm and Bud Phinney bought property owned by the Everett Gospel Mission on the corner of California Avenue and Fulton Street in Everett, they didn’t know the Mission had allowed neighbors to use the vacant lot as a community garden.
The property had a "For Sale" sign on it for four years. But year after year, the land sat. There were no buyers.
So the Riverside Neighborhood’s residents took their chances and planted brandy wine tomatoes, red peppers and garbanzo beans, thinking the property wasn’t likely to sell.
This May, the 24,000 square foot plot finally sold. But half of the square-footage of the lot had been used as a P-patch.
Soon after, when neighbors learned the Mission’s property had sold, they panicked. Their P-patch had been there for seven years. They had already spent money on organic fertilizer and seed on their gardens.
But Hunter arranged a meeting with the new owners.
"I was amazed," she said.
Bluhm and Phinney agreed to preserve as much of the P-patch as they could until it was ready to harvest, even though they had plans to build a pair of duplexes this summer.
"It was just a matter of working around it." Phinney said
"I kind of know how important it was to folks."
As a result of their accommodations, the neighborhood P-Patch bloomed until September.
Tomatoes and peppers poked their heads above the odd chunk of concrete or a length of rebar.
"It got full sun until a couple of weeks ago," Hunter said.
Half the families who had planted gardens were able to harvest their yield this fall.
"A 10-by-15-foot garden plot can feed a family," Hunter said.
And those who had to give up their gardens were compensated for their loss.
The developers didn’t have to do it, Hunter said.
"A couple of ladies wanted to grow food for the food bank," Hunter said. "Then we had some people, many of them were growing for their families."
Phinney and Bluhm donated $100 each to the food bank on behalf of Martha Holly and Lolita Herndon and five other families received $50 gift certificates from Thriftway, Hunter said.
"Gem made it easy to work around it," Phinney said.
"I’m not here today and gone tomorrow," Bluhm said. "All we tried to do is be good neighbors."
Hunter said their offer to help did not stop at the property line.
"We are looking for a new place to put the P-patch," Hunter said.
"We found a site that had pieces of foundation and driveway on it. Bud offered to clear that."
Reporter Janice Podsada: 425-339-3029 or podsada@heraldnet.com.
Like Skid Row, the term P-patch originated in Seattle. According to Wendy McClure, coordinator of the Everett Office of Neighborhoods, the P is short for Picardo, the surname of Italian-American truck farmer Rainy Picardo. In the 1970s, Picardo donated land to the city of Seattle, which became the first community gardens, now known as P-patches.
CHRIS GOODENOW / The Herald
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