The Twin Ponds Community Garden might be the most perfect community project ever

Some of the beds dedicated to food bank produce

Story and photos by Jamie Holter

On a sunny late July day, no fewer than six volunteers (and one fun-loving, three-year-old grandchild) were sowing the seeds of kindness and generosity at the Twin Ponds Community Garden on 1st Ave NE just south of Twin Ponds Playfields near N 155th Street.

This little guy showed me the strawberries he planted – and ate – grown in the children’s garden

Sprouting from an old basketball court and gravel lot owned by the City of Shoreline in 2012, the 54-plot garden explodes with every vegetable, herb and legume you can imagine. It feeds local families who garden there, Shoreline seniors, Lake City Food Bank customers and the souls of those who show up here to work every week.

High school student Matt from Mountlake Terrace
High School is weeding

Half the garden plots, the 10-by-10 boxes, are rented to Shoreline residents for $55 a year. The City of Shoreline’s price hasn’t changed in a decade. The rest are tended to by the 20 volunteers who logged 1400 work hours in 2024. Volunteers prop up sprouts and transplant, water, and feed the chard, eggplant, kale and more.

This garden is brought to Shoreline by generous people and generous donors. Starbucks donates grounds. Home Depot and Dunn Lumber donate wood. Cascade Coffee donates burlap bags. Eagle Scouts built bat boxes and compost bins. Sky Nursery donates many things. The City of Shoreline helps with chips. 

High school kids like Matt from Mountlake Terrace donate time for weeding, a constant battle as every gardener knows.

Susan Westphal, the garden goddess

Susan Westphal is the current volunteer maître d’ of the garden. She’s been with the community garden for five years. Practically speaking, she works in the garden, tracks volunteer hours for the city of Shoreline, writes grants, picks up nutrient-rich zoodoo from Woodland Park Zoo (free of charge) in her truck. 

Twice a week she takes food to the Lake City Food Bank and the Shoreline Senior Center where the chef prepares low-cost lunches and drools over fresh chard, chives, garlic, collard greens, peppers, beets, kohlrabi, rhubarb and tomatillos.

This year, the Twin Ponds community garden expects to donate 2500 pounds of food.

Rosie takes a break from translating tiny starts

Who are some of the folks who make this happen? 

On this July day, here are some of the folks working the bounty:

Shellie Anderson, the garden’s “brains”, “Don’t call me a master gardener. I don’t have that degree!” 

But she has been here for more than a decade and knows her nutrients (including seaweed which has iodine in it).

Jane Chen is harvesting chives

Jane Chen who was harvesting chives and shared that if you fry chives then use that oil, it is perfect for Asian noodle dishes.

Rosie Oakes who is the transplanting expert.

Jackie brings herbs from her own garden
 for Susan to take to the food bank

Jackie who used to donate more time but has been busy lately. 

She still came by to bring herbs from her own garden for Susan to take to the food bank that afternoon.

About the overabundance of delicious apples I have in my own yard, Susan encouraged me to share. “If you have excess, bring it!”

Learn more about the city's community garden program.

To volunteer at the Twin Ponds garden, email twinpondsgarden@gmail.com