Pollinator Week is an annual celebration in support of pollinator health that was initiated and is managed by Pollinator Partnership. It is a time to raise awareness for pollinators and spread the word about what we can do to protect them.
Here at Kirke Park, we’re hosting a Bioblitz (survey of pollinators) on Sunday, June 23. To join in the citizen-science fun, stop by the Secret Garden between 9am and Noon to record observations of pollinators using iNaturalist.
Let’s get the park all spiffy for Spring! We’ll cut back some of the ornamental plants around the lawn and tackle perennial weeds (morning glory, buttercup, etc.) along the perimeter of the park.
Thank you for helping keep our park beautiful!
Sunday, March 24
9am to Noon
Please bring gloves and garden tools if you can (we’ll have some to loan if you need to borrow).
Curious about how to prune your fruit trees? Our friends at City Fruit have generously offered to visit the Kirke Park Orchard once again to demonstrate winter pruning fundamentals. Join us on Thursday, Feb. 22 from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.
Don’t miss this great opportunity to see pruning done and ask questions!
Are you craving an opportunity to get your hands in the dirt? Socialize with other gardeners? Support the Ballard Food Bank? Or are you/do you have a high schooler who needs to accrue service hours to fulfill graduation requirements?
Volunteer in the Giving Garden! The Giving Garden at Kirke’s P-Patch grows herbs for the Food Bank in Ballard, and needs help on harvest days. Duties will include harvesting and packaging herbs and/or delivering harvested items to the Food Bank (which can be done by car — or by bike!). It’ll be fun and easy (if you’re a gardening newbie, the Giving Garden manager will show you what to do), and your help will be greatly appreciated! Many hands make light work, as the saying goes.
Harvest days are Thursdays, 9 to 10 am throughout the summer, beginning July 20. You don’t have to make a long term commitment or RSVP — just come when you can. See you there!
Sustainable Ballard’s 14th Annual Edible Garden Tour
This year’s Sustainable Ballard Edible Garden Tour focuses on NE Ballard and kicks off right here at Kirke Park! With its P-Patch Garden and pollinator-supporting “Secret Garden,” we think Kirke is an especially appropriate place to kick off an Edible Garden Tour.
As it happens, this summer marks the P-Patch Program’s 50th Anniversary! In celebration, Kirke Park gardeners will be around to answer questions about the P-Patch and its 50-year history, the Giving Garden program, and the Secret Garden. (Even if you’re not going on the Edible Garden Tour, you’re still welcome to tour the Kirke gardens.)
Sustainable Ballard’s Edible Garden Tour will educate and inspire current and future gardeners by showing how your neighbors raise urban fruits and vegetables. Tickets are available at sustainableballard.org for a $15 donation (Sustainable Ballard Supporting Members and children under 10 are free). Show your ticket (printed or on your phone) at the Kirke Park check-in station, then pick up your tour map and walk or bike to neighborhood gardens for this fun, self-guided tour. The event goes from 10am to 3pm.
Event Extras!
Music!Rick and Lisa Seattle Duo will entertain garden tour early birds from 10am to 11:30am on the big lawn, “Spreading Peace and Love, One Song at a Time!” On the web, visit Rick and Lisa on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook.
Games! We’ll put out stomp rockets and sidewalk chalk for the kids.
Plants and Artwork! Kirke gardeners will have a few plants available for cash donations and (if it’s not raining) one of our gardeners will be selling garden-inspired photographs; donation proceeds will support the gardens at Kirke.
Pollinator Week! The Edible Garden Tour coincides with Pollinator Week, June 19 to 25, 2023, which is an annual celebration in support of pollinator health that was initiated and is managed by Pollinator Partnership. It is a time to raise awareness for pollinators and spread the word about what we can do to protect them.
Here are Kirke Park, we’ll celebrate Pollinator Week during the Edible Garden Tour. Pollinators are essential to edible gardening, after all! Citizen Scientists of all ages are welcome to join Gardener Becky in the Secret Garden (or should we call it the Bee-cret Garden!) to fill out a Bee-ingo Card and help determine which flowers our neighborhood pollinators like best!
Help Needed!
If you’d like to help with the Edible Garden Tour, here are two opportunities: • Friends of Kirke Park is having a work party on Sunday, June 11 from 9am to Noon to get the park all spiffed up. • Sustainable Ballard is looking for volunteers to help before and during the tour.
This Friends of Kirke Park Work Party will get the park all spiffy for the Sustainable Ballard Edible Garden Tour on June 24, which begins here at Kirke. We’ll also get the playground area in good shape for the busy summer season. Some perennial weeds (morning glory, buttercup, etc.) are trying to get a foothold along the perimeter of the park, so we’ll tackle those as well. Thank you for helping keep our park beautiful!
Sunday, June 11
9am to Noon
Please bring gloves and garden tools if you can (we’ll have some to loan if you need to borrow).
Join us for a summer solstice celebration on Wednesday, June 21! Beginning at 5pm, we’ll bring out a grill at the house across the street from the park — for those who bring their own grillable food — and we’ll also provide fixins to roast s’mores over the fire! Festivities will wrap up at dusk; it’s a school night, after all.
In anticipation of Spring, we’re planning a Kirke Park work party on Sunday, March 19, 9am to noon (rescheduled from April 26, due to super cold weather — brrr!). We’ll focus on weeding around the playground, big lawn, and perimeter. Bring weeding tools if you have any, but we’ve got loaners if you don’t. Hope to see you there!
Curious about how to prune fruit trees? City Fruit volunteers will prune our fruit trees on Friday, January 20, from 1pm to about 4pm — and we’re all invited to watch and learn. Join us!