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P-Patch Community Gardens Ferdinand
Growing Families
High on Beacon Hill, on the freezing last Saturday in February, an annual ritual
takes place. Ferdinand P-Patch sits between spiky electrical towers on a long greenway
of Seattle City Light property; a fence with red and white recycled stop sign posts
surrounds the gardeners. Ferdinand P-Patch gardeners, immigrants from the highland
of Laos and Thailand, industriously grow the food crops of their homeland for extended
families and community. Each year we greet one another, gratified to see the same
happy faces, pleased to see the children bigger than last year, glad to see new
babies in their colorful costumes. In a few short weeks the site will be transformed
from a sleeping winter garden into an abundance of greens. Small children will scamper
between the row as their mothers harvest bitter melon, gai lohn, gai choy, yard
long beans, and fragrant cilantro.
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