PORT HADLOCK — More than vegetables are growing at the Olympic Community Action Programs’ community pea patch.
The popular pea patch itself is expanding to meet community demand and area food banks, which received 250 pounds of veggies during the garden’s first season.
Eleven more 5-by-20-foot plots were recently plowed and fenced with deer netting. An irrigation system was added.
That brings the total number of pea patch plots to 35, said Cali Keck, an AmeriCorps volunteer who coordinates the pea patch program for OlyCAP.
The patch now wraps around two sides of the OlyCAP Thrift Shoppe, 10632 Rhody Drive.
It is on property once choked with quack grass.
After its first season, a major transformation took place after a war on weeds and the OlyCAP Community Pea Patch became a colorful collage of vegetable plots.
Her experience as the OlyCAP garden coordinator gives Keck not only vocational experience but satisfies a need, she said.
“Every March, when spring rolls around I’m itching to get my hands in the dirt,” said Keck, 27, as she looked over the newly tilled garden section and a colorful OlyCAP pea patch sign made by art students of Nathan Chollar at Chimacum High School.
A pumpkin patch adjacent to the new fenced garden ground also is being added this season.
Those who use the patch, Keck said, “Don’t have room, or have property that’s shady.”
For $50 a year, the gardener gets water, shared tools, gardening advice and maybe even a sense of community working alongside other gardeners of varying experience.
Scholarships are available to those who can afford it.
Food banks
At least four plots are set aside for food banks, Keck said, and a gardening program is being organized for veterans, reserving four plots.
Volunteers are also being sought for the garden.
Other major contributors to the community pea patch include Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Port Townsend, Jefferson County Master Gardeners.
Midori Farm, Red Dog Farm and RainCoast Gardens also donated seeds and starts to the pea patch.
Others are donating such plants as artichokes, rhubarb and potatoes.
John Gunning, with Collinwood and Gunning Family Farms, donated his tractor to till the new patch.
“He’s been a great asset to the process,” Keck said.
With her AmeriCorps contract drawing to a close this summer, Keck said she was unsure if the pea patch would prove a success but believes it is already.
She hopes to find other work in sustainable agriculture, perhaps in a foreign land such as New Zealand.
“I was thoroughly impressed. It’s been a pleasant discovery every day and the community has been wonderful,” she said.
Six plots were still available as of Tuesday, Keck said. She can be contacted at 360-302-1221.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
