DNDA Makes an Accessible Garden Bed!
In spring 2024, DNDA started the process of helping the Delridge P-Patch become more accessible.
Students from DNDA’s Environmental Justice Summer Youth Program helped fill the raised bed with soil
This dream was started by some members of Delridge P-Patch and Jules Hepp, DNDA’s environmental education coordinator. Jules and the gardeners knew that accessible garden beds were necessary for many people in our community. Although there are some higher beds at the Delridge P-Patch, they are not always available or accessible. Adding in an accessible bed that people can wheel or sit under increases the number of people who can access the garden, grow food, and engage in the space. As a member of the Delridge community and the P-Patch, Jules has seen wheelchairs, walkers, and other mobility devices roll and move through the space. The project allows them to feel welcomed, included, and empowered to be a part of the garden by allowing mobility device users to fully reach into the garden bed, rather than park and sit next to it and have potentially lower amounts of access.
The evolution of the Seed and Sprout Community Garden project from concept sketch to implementation
The garden bed is part of DNDA’s free environmental education STEAM program. The garden program is intended to build and maintain opportunities where youth can participate in learning more about growing and harvesting foods, including content relating to life cycles, climate change, food justice, medicine-making, and more! DNDA’s accessible garden bed project will help increase access to the Delridge P-Patch, and help to provide accessible gardening programs to students in local West Seattle schools.
Community members of all ages volunteered to help build the raised bed.
Later in the summer, teen interns from DNDA’s Environmental Justice Summer Youth Program helped to fill dirt into the bed. The teens also learned about plants that would grow well together in the garden space. The teens made a planting plan based on prior knowledge about mapping plant types, understanding sun exposure, and seeing what plants are often placed near each other in other garden spaces. The teens worked to consider edible plants that both were exciting to them, and culturally relevant. Thanks for the enthusiasm and support from all those who helped this project forward. We look forward to offering the accessible garden bed and garden program to the communities at Pathfinder K-8 School, Louisa Boren STEM K-8, and others!
Teens working and learning about food and how they are culturally relevant. They planned to how they were going to plant the seed and the best way to plant them with compostable pots.
-Written by DNDA’s Environmental Education Coordinator Jules Hepp