Sustainable NE Seattle Edible Garden Tour - Part 1

Today the Sustainable NE Seattle group held the Edible Garden Tour of fifteen of their member's gardens. What a wonderful opportunity for gardeners in the Seattle area to see what kinds of foods are being grown in our maritime climate, how small spaces can produce an abundance of fresh organic home grown food and the changes people are making to live more sustainably.

In the next several posts, I'll be sharing pictures of some of the gardens I really enjoyed.  Every gardener/farmer was incredibly generous with explaining the who, what, when, where, why and how of their gardens.

The first garden I want to share is an amazing place that has everything from bees, to a contemporary root cellar, to a passive solar system which produces so much energy that the extra power is sold back to Seattle City Light. This family is passionate about living sustainably and I could certainly see it while touring their garden.

The solar panels and storage units that have been installed on the roof of John and Sue's home provides electricity while also heating water for home use and the thermal floor heating system.

Broken ceramic pots make for a colorful and functional raised bed for growing the leafy greens.

Snap peas

This is an innovative modified hoophouse. The supports are rebar and the cover is a light weight nylon netting. Underneath the blueberries and strawberries can ripen and are safe from being consumed by the birds. I thought the rebar frame might be a good option for setting up an electric fence to keep the deer out of my gardens.

Top bar bee hive.

And the rainwater collection system.