SEQUIM — Step into this soon-to-be garden, and the ground feels delicious. And springy.
That makes sense, to Liz Harper and her band of fresh-vegetable lovers.
Three years ago Harper and Friends of the Fields, Clallam County’s farmland preservation coalition, opened the first Community Organic Garden of Sequim.
This spring they and the city of Sequim are inviting people to another public space for planting.
The June Robinson Memorial Park, a green spot at the corner of Spruce Street and Sunnyside Avenue, is composed of 24 plots that are open to anyone who wants to grow organic fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers.
As of last week, 12 of those plots were still available for a fee of $45 for the year.
These plots — which include eight raised beds for gardeners who can’t easily hunker down to the ground — will be ready in March, said associate city planner Joe Irvin.
With daylight saving time starting March 14 and spring coming on March 21, he urges would-be growers to stake their claims.
The June Robinson Memorial Park, named for the Sequim historian and longtime school volunteer who died last May, also has a small parking lot and a grassy swatch for picnicking, dog-walking and relaxing.
At the same time, 10 of the 45 plots at the original Community Organic Garden of Sequim are still available, Harper said last week.
That garden, behind St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue, has grown into its name.
Among its blooming rows, paths and picnic table, gardeners work together, share tips and recipes and breathe the fresh air.
“People enjoy the conversation, the camaraderie,” Harper said, adding that even Sequim residents who don’t have plots tell her they bring visiting family members over to see the community garden.
Plot holders can start planting cool-weather crops such as peas as early as March, Harper said, though they do most of their planting later in spring.
Last summer and fall, she said, the community garden yielded a bountiful harvest — of tomatoes, leafy greens, berries and friendships.
And compared with the snows of late 2008 and early ’09, “this winter has been wonderful” in its mildness.
Growing food and flowers in a community setting is just very satisfying, Harper said.
And since these things are born to grow, she’s looking for yet another community garden site in Sequim.
“My vision,” said Harper, “is to have a string of these all over town.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
