Urban Landscape, Native Landscape: November 2016

Friday, November 4, 2016

Seattle Community Farm at Rainier Vista

All photos were taken in November 2014.

The Seattle Community Farm at Rainier Vista covers half an acre of the Rainier Valley between the Mt Baker & Columbia City Stations, west of Martin Luther King Jr Way S, against the Cheasty Greenspace. It is associated with Solid Ground through their Lettuce Link program, which provides produce to lower income people in Seattle. The garden was built in 2010 with the help of the Seattle Housing Authority & the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods P-Patch Community Gardening Program. It is a pleasantly bucolic place to visit in the midst of the bustling city, accessible by bus & light rail, with parking easy to find. The Rainier Vista Dakota Garden P-Patch is nearby & the Rainier Vista Snoqualmie Garden P-Patch is a bit farther south, if you are in the mood for community garden touring.

About This Blog

This blog began in 2008 as Metropolitan Gardens to provide information on gardening in Seattle & places like it. Click on Gardening in Cascadia. The blog expanded to include Parks P-Patches Public Gardens in the US, Canada & Europe. Then Nature was added. (The difference between nature & gardens is intent. Nature happens. Gardens are planned.) Many recent posts are not about Seattle, or even Cascadia. They are Urban Landscape: streetscape & architecture. Cascadia is the region including the Cascade Mountains of Washington & Oregon. If you want to contact the blogger, leave a message in comments. Comments are moderated & private messages will not be posted.

Our Land & Climate

The city of Seattle rests between 2 bodies of water: Puget Sound & Lake Washington. Puget Sound is a substantial part of the Salish Sea & a very small part of the Pacific Ocean. The Salish Sea is set apart from the Pacific by the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington & Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia. The dense, wet clouds of the Pacific Ocean travel as far as the Cascade Mountains, near the Salish Sea & not very far from the ocean. East of the Cascades lies the desert of the Columbia Basin. The moist, temperate climate of Seattle extends south to northern California & north to southeastern Alaska. The Pacific Northwest Coast from San Francisco Bay to Cook Inlet shares a flora dominated by evergreen coniferous forest. The central portion, west of the Cascade Mountains, is called Cascadia. The climate is cool & wet from fall to spring, warm & dry in summer. The Olympic Mountains block Seattle from much of the Pacific rainfall. Seattle is drier than the Atlantic coast of North America & northern Europe, cooler in summer & warmer in winter. It lies near the latitude of Paris & Quebec City.