TOPS | Seward School Garden

"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth" Thomas Jefferson

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Washington State University and Stewardship Partners are leading a groundbreaking campaign to install 12,000 rain gardens in the Seattle/Puget Sound Region by 2016. This is the map to track our progress. You can actively participate in this exciting campaign by installing one or more rain gardens in your community. In return you will reduce water pollution, prevent flooding, increase home values, make for beautiful, low-maintenance landscapes, and help your community save millions of dollars in pollution clean-up and expensive stormwater projects.

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What does every garden need? 

A place to store it tools. At TOPS we have a portion of the custodian’s hallway but a closet is in the works! Contact us to be a part of the build day!

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What’s a Bread Lab? 

Bakers, chefs, restaurateurs, food entrepreneurs, community organizers, and writers come to the Bread Lab at Washington State University to interact with scientists and to make contact with farmers, millers, maltsters, distillers and brewers.  The environment allows participants to learn, teach, and experiment in a functioning kitchen lab without having to shut down their own production lines.

Why do we need it? 

Wheat is the number one source of food calories on the planet. A whole kernel of wheat is one of the most nutrient dense foods while white flour is one of the least.

The goal of the Bread Lab is to combine science, art, curiosity, and innovation to explore ways of using regionally available grains to move the craft of whole grain bread baking and other grain usage forward.

Check it out for resources like recipes and documentaries.

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What a great idea! @lifelabtweets

Life Lab along with the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems co-manage the two-acre Garden Classroom. The Garden Classroom which is located on the UCSC CASFS Farm overlooking the Monterey Bay

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What can you do in a year? 

Conceptual artist Stan Herd grew a reproduction of a Vincent can Gogh olive tree painting in a field in Minnesota. 

Last month the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) unveiled a 1.5-acre work of crop art by Stan Herd, a Kansas-based artist who has planted many earthworks around the world, including a re-creation of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of gliders

What would you like to grow?

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The key difference between what poor people and everyone else eat. The results may surprise you. Link here to the washingtonpost article.

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Alice Waters, owner and former chef of the legendary Chez Panisse restaurant and maven of the slow food movement, says the best way to combat fast food culture is through “edible education.” Waters offers her Brief but Spectacular take on the benefits of cooking and inspiring young people to care about their food

For more, see Edible Education 101 lecture, "A Brief History of the Modern Food System" streamed live from the University of California, Berkeley. Watch every lecture from the course here.

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via Nourish

Eating offers us an intimate connection with the soil. Food journalist Michael Pollan describes the nutrient cycle that starts and ends with dirt. (Read the blog post.)

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Let’s stop treating our soil like dirt

One of the most underappreciated resources on our planet, soil does much more than grow crops

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Hurray! TOPS Urban Garden has been awarded a Whole Foods Garden grant for 2015-2016. We will use the money to finish our garden irrigation system and to build a cloche system for our raised beds. 

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We are building a drip irrigation system at TOPS. How does it work? Check out this step by step guide.

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Get Crisp Spring Crops at March Edible Plant Sale on March 14

Get ready for spring gardening! Our Puget Sound region has a maritime climate that's perfect for early planting. Getting started early is a great way to increase how much food you can harvest this year.

Seattle Tilth kicks off spring gardening season with our March Edible Plant Sale on Saturday, March 14, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Pacific Market Center garage (6100 4th Ave. S., Seattle). This event focuses on organically grown spring edible plant starts, from veggies, herbs and fruits to edible flowers and fruit trees.

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A Farming Kindergarten in Vietnam with a Spiraling Green Roof

A fully accessible green roof drawn in a triple-ring-shape creates three courtyards enclosed by the looping structure, providing safe and secure playgrounds for the kindergarten’s occupants. The different levels and gradients created by the building’s spiral form offer a series of distinct outdoor learning environments, where children are able to forge a close relationship with the natural world.

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This Canadian site shows neighborhood gardening in action!

Gardens naturally produce surplus and sharing makes it possible to grow a wider variety of delicious plants and beautiful flowers. 

Discover all the plants, seeds, surplus produce, gardening materials and Incredible Edible containers shared by these fellow gardening neighbors.

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Want big, free plants?

Hate to throw out a perfectly healthy plant, shrub or tree that is no longer working in your yard, patio or garden?

Plant Amnesty allows you to offer and find plants for transplant. The listing service is free. If you want plants, PA asks you to become a member for a small fee.

It's a great way to share plants.