Social Gathering

Neighborhood parties at Kirke Park!

Bioblitz: June 23, 9-Noon

It’s here, pollinator-lovers: Pollinator Week (June 17–24, 2024)!

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.

For more information on Pollinator Week, visit the Pollinator Partnership’s website; to join iNaturalist’s Pollinator Week Bioblitz project, visit iNaturalist’s website.


Bioblitz: June 23, 9-Noon Read More »

Volunteers Needed!

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.

Giving Garden

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!

Volunteers Needed! Read More »

Garden Tour, Saturday June 24, 10am-3pm

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.


Garden Tour, Saturday June 24, 10am-3pm Read More »

Sat, Sept. 17: 10th Anniversary Celebration!

Time: 3:00pm through Sunset

Kirke Park turned 10 Years Old in the summer of 2022! We had a great celebration on Saturday, September 17, 2022, with lots of fun activities, including music, games, face-painting, cake walks, and a presentation honoring Friends of Kirke Park founding members. Friends of Kirke Park donated a new 12-foot picnic bench, which now sits in the north end (near the p-patch); FOKP also installed a plaque in the Secret Garden to honor Barbara Hainley, one of Kirke Park’s founders.
Many, many thanks to Seattle Department of Neighborhoods/Small Sparks, Seattle Parks Foundation, and Groundswell NW for their support.


Schedule of Events

Music:

3:00-4:00: Sølje Sisters
4:00 – 4:30: Presentation Honoring Kirke Park Founders, followed by a tour of the Secret Garden
4:30-5:30: Seattle Civic (Polka) Band
5:30 – 6:30: Whozyamama Cajun Band
7:30pm: School of Rock

Many thanks to all our wonderful musical groups! We set up a “bandstand” in the corner of the big lawn near the tree, so music fans could enjoy the music from their blankets on the lawn (we provided a couple chairs, too) — dancers had to be sure their patch of ground was level!

Grilled hot dog were available from 4:30pm to 7pm

Other activities:
• Running Around! Our street was closed except to local traffic from 1:00pm to 9:00pm
• Cake Walks! We held Cake Walk competitions between musical acts (we also had a few “extra” small cupcakes so all participants could get a little treat). Many thanks to all our cake bakers!
• Face Painting! A face painter set up “shop” between 3pm and 5pm — so fun!!
• Art Everywhere! We set buckets of chalk all around the park so local artists could decorate the sidewalk and garden/orchard walls

• Games! Neighbors brought game like corn hole and table-top Connect Four, and the face painter brought a bunch of punch balloons.
• Alas, there was no movie, after all. We’re hoping to have some movies at the park next summer.

Thank You Neighbors for a Wonderful Kirke Park Celebration!

There’s still time to make a tax-deductible donation to the Friends of Kirke Park Fund, through the Seattle Parks Foundation, to support future events at Kirke Park.

Sat, Sept. 17: 10th Anniversary Celebration! Read More »