Urban garden growing at T-Mobile Park to provide produce to communities with food insecurity – KIRO 7 News Seattle

SEATTLE – A new urban garden is growing in T-Mobile Park after the Seattle Mariners joined a national initiative to send fresh food over the walls and out of the ballpark.

Mariners’ ground crews are used to keeping the field at T-Mobile Park untouched, but now they are branching out to work with other groups to grow a garden that will provide fresh produce to underserved communities.

“It feels pretty special to be here, and when we first planted the garden we couldn’t go in for a couple of weeks so I didn’t really know what was happening – fingers crossed, you know. I came around the corner and saw it grow, ”said Stephen Dorsch of Common Acre.

The Mariners say “Back the Blue,” but the group is also trying to help the green by working with nonprofit Common Acre to create an urban garden on the ballpark behind midfield.

“This is already one of the most immediately lush gardens we maintain, so it’s really exciting just from a gardener’s point of view. We came here, recently planted it and it’s already exploding, ”said gardener Nat Mengist.

Gardening players include Swiss chard, kale, cucumber, eggplant, peppers, herbs like lavender and basil, and even some flowers.

It is an effort that is already yielding crops that are being donated to communities living with food insecurity.

Tito’s Vodka also supports the extra green in the ballpark.

“The weird home run with the pickles is a bit of a problem, but beyond that it’s okay,” joked Brendan Byass from Titos Vodka. “What we’re most excited about is the awareness this gives people of community gardens. There are so many community gardening efforts in the big city that people may not know about and as part of that I think this is creating awareness and we look forward to people hearing about it. “

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