Athough Kitsap County is known for its rural character, many of its residents do not have room for their own vegetable gardens, and with condominiums and scaled-down lifestyles on the rise in this area, community gardens promise to be one the best ways to insure access to -- and enjoyment of -- locally-grown food. 

This article is the first in a series that will take a look at community gardens.  Where are they and who operates them?  Who can participate, what are the rules?  How are community gardens evolving?

We begin with a tour of the best-known public program on Bainbridge Island, the Pea Patches at Battle Point Park. 

With 28 people on the waiting list for a Pea Patch plot this year, the Bainbridge Park District's Battle Point program remains the most well-known and high-profile local community garden.  Located at the southwest edge of the park's 90 acres, these 35 garden plots offer year-round activity, color, creativity and entertainment for those who pass by on the park's pathway -- not to mention the many varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables they provide to the gardeners and their friends and families on a extended-season basis.

Measuring approximately 15' x 30' (450 square feet), each plot in the Battle Point pea patch seems to offer its own special character. You may see tomatoes growing in huge tractor tires.  Other gardeners tend carefully measured rows and neatly divided squares. Still others approach their plots with the gusto of an painter, splashing colorful flowers across the canvas of their pea patch plot. Perennials, annuals, fruit trees, and every kind of gardening technique are on display at Battle Point, and passers-by enjoy not only a visual treat, but often, an educational experience.

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Don’t know much about gardening . . . but I’m learning.

My mother’s parents had a garden behind their home in Onalaska, Washington, and there was also a damp, dark place just off the back porch called a “root cellar.” Dug into the ground a bit, and with a dirt floor, it was filled with bushel baskets of potatoes and onions, and the shelves were laden with Ball jars filled with many different fruits and vegetables. The light in there wasn’t very good, so it seemed a lot more mysterious to my childish eyes than it probably was, and it made a distinct impression on me. Here was food put away from the harvesting season that would be brought into the house, jar by jar, and potato by potato, for consumption throughout the late fall, winter and spring.

During World War II, people were encouraged to grow “victory gardens” and my parents participated in that effort. We lived in Burlingame, California at that time, and the community college at the end of our street turned over its open space for community garden plots. I remember walking to the garden with my mom to harvest something to include in the evening meal. During that time, we also had a dedicated apricot tree at one of the many orchards in the Santa Clara valley – the Marti family saved one specific tree for my parents to come and harvest the apricots when they were ripe. This may have been an early forerunner of community supported agriculture – my parents paid in advance for the produce from this tree, and were entitled to whatever it bore in a given year. I also remember going to a huge tomato field in that vicinity, to glean tomatoes that had been left after a commercial harvest had ended.

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