Picardo Farm

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Flowers, Picardo Farm

Barn and shelter, Picardo Farm

Gardening at Picardo Farm

Picardo Farm is a 98,000 sq. ft. parcel of property in Wedgwood, Seattle, Washington, consisting largely of 281 plots used for gardening allotments.^[1] It is the original P-Patch (the local term for such community gardens): the "P" originally stood for "Picardo", after the family who owned it.^[2] The Picardos' land went beyond the present P-Patch; it also encompassed the property of the adjacent Reform Jewish Temple Beth Am and of University Prep, an independent private co-educational, non-sectarian day school for grades six through twelve.^{[citation needed]}

The Picardo family farmed 20 acres at 25th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 80th Street from the 1920s to about 1962 or '63. Rainie Picardo leased out plots for a few more years, and then the city bought the land.^[2]

It is one of two historical farms preserved within Seattle city limits, the other being Marra Farm in South Park.^[3] The city's official web site describes Picardo Farm as having "Seattle's best soil… Rich, black, peaty, sucking with moisture in the spring, powdery dry for digging potatoes…^[1]

The soil isn't the only thing that has put Picardo Farm on the map: it is also known for a statue installed there, Steve Anderson's 2 1/4-foot-high bronze statue known as the Picardo Venus: "Pregnant, naked, hair in dreadlocks and sporting a sparkling nose stud".^[4]^[5] The statue was originally quite controversial. Sitting next to a children's play area, one P-Patch gardener remarked of it, "She’s glorifying fertility a little too much for kids, isn’t she?"^[4] Nonetheless, a January 2000 poll of the Picardo gardeners resulted in a decision to keep the statue.^[6]

[edit] Notes

^ ^a ^b Picardo Farm, P-Patch Community Gardens, City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods web site. Accessed online 28 October 2006.
^ ^a ^b Kery Murakami, Do you know why they're called P-patches?, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 29, 2005. Accessed online 28 October 2006.
^ Athima Chansanchai, Marra Farm plants seeds for South Park community, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 3, 2005. Accessed online 28 October 2006.
^ ^a ^b Tim Klass (Associated Press), Garden community aflame over Venus, Laredo Morning Times (Laredo, Texas), October 21, 1999, p. 7A. Accessed online 28 October 2006.
^ Steve Anderson, The Picardo Venus, originally on the personal web site of Larry Nielson, Picardo Farm P-Patch Art Committee Chair; archived Dec 9, 2000 on the Internet Archive.
^ Larry Nielson, The Picardo Venus Controversy, originally on the personal web site of Larry Nielson, Picardo Farm P-Patch Art Committee Chair; archived Dec 9, 2000 on the Internet Archive.