The Ching Community Gardens begins

After the sale of the property closed, volunteers met at the garden to discuss plans - but couldn't keep their hands off the weeds. (L-R) John Darrow, Jim Walseth, Sarah Garrard, Kathleen Lumiere, and Pam Ching-Bunge. Photo courtesy Ching Community Gardens

By Kathleen Lumiere

After nearly three years, GROW, a P-Patch land trust organization, has successfully purchased the former home of the Ching family in Shoreline. This achievement marks the end of a long process filled with doubts and setbacks, and it is the joyous beginning for what will become the Ching Community Gardens: an Asian American heritage site, food forest, and P-Patch (1)

The idea originated during the pandemic when, like many people, I went for a lot of walks. This exploration led to an ardent appreciation of the plants and animals in the forests and tidelands of Shoreline. Particularly, I fell in love with a neglected property north of my home close to Shoreline College.

Initially, an abundance of ripe plums near the property line drew my attention. On closer inspection, I discovered a hidden orchard of fruit trees, including heirloom apples, Asian pears, figs, grapes, and persimmons, tangled in thick layers of prickly blackberries and holly. The rich dark earth seemed to invite any seed to grow.

In what’s known as a food forest, fruit trees provide structure. Other plants that work well together are folded into the design, making a productive ecosystem with multiple layers. These layers often flower and fruit at different times, providing beauty, pollinator habitat, and food throughout much of the year. In addition to perennial food plantings, annual/vegetable gardening is also possible in a food forest or permaculture system (2).

(L-R) Sarah Garrard, Maryn Wynne, Pam Ching-Bunge.
Photo courtesy Ching Community Gardens

This abandoned, overgrown property on Greenwood Avenue North had ideal elements for a food forest: established heirloom fruit trees, grape vines, and phenomenal soil.

During this time, neighbors told me about the property's previous owners, Joe and Jennie Ching. They had created remarkable gardens and shared their bounty. 

An obituary for Joe Ching revealed his and his family's extraordinary story, how, as a Chinese American, he joined up to serve in the army right after Pearl Harbor and how Jennie, working as a nanny in California, had been sent to a Japanese concentration camp in Arizona. After the war, they met and married in their home state, Hawaii. 

Having learned to cook in the army, Joe worked in a restaurant where he met Peter Canlis. This connection led the young Ching family to Seattle to help establish the flagship Canlis restaurant.

Seeking a safe home to raise their children, the Chings looked to Shoreline, but they encountered the barriers of redlining and racially restrictive covenants. 

So Joe's employer, Peter Canlis, bought the property after finding out if the neighbors would welcome an Asian family. Peter sold it in turn to Joe and Jennie.

Steve Lindjord, a middle school student in 1957, remembers the day the Chings moved in next door. He said he was instantly struck by what wonderful people they were. "They were so sweet and so warm and so welcoming." And, in the twelve years he lived there, "that impression never faded."

The family's daughter, Pam Ching-Bunge, distinctly remembers many weekends with everyone digging rocks out of the ground before Joe and Jennie transformed the land from a hard, stony lot to a lush "garden of Eden." They would be featured multiple times in Ed Hume's long-running television program, Gardening in America. 

Joe spent nearly every morning tending to his vegetables and experimenting with new organic gardening methods before heading to work as head chef at Canlis. Jennie cultivated the flowers she then used in ikebana (traditional Japanese floral arrangements). Pam described the rows and rows of canned vegetables Jennie would put up throughout harvest season.

Jim Walseth pitted his strength against a vine wrapped in the little tree.
He won. The vine looked to be about 15' long
Photo courtesy Ching Community Gardens

People in the neighborhood still talk about the Chings’ hospitality. Steve Lindjord said a few years after they moved in, the Chings "had a huge party, a luau because they had come from Hawaii. They invited all the neighbors, and everybody had a great time. They dug a big pit in the backyard and filled it with hot rocks and banana leaves for cooking." He said, "Every time I went to the Chings’, they fed me."

Motivated by Chings' warm and inclusive legacy, the area's history of redlining, and the possibilities hidden in the overgrown property, I proposed a community garden in a letter to the Shoreline City Council in the spring of 2021. The goal was to honor the Chings and the many contributions of Asian Americans to our communities, especially during a time of increased racism and anti-Asian violence. The garden seemed like a way for us all to acknowledge the past and grow something beautiful together.

The proposal gained immediate support from Diane Hettrick at the Shoreline Area News, who suggested writing an op-ed piece. Before that article came out in April 2021, I contacted Pam Ching-Bunge. On the phone, she said she was moved to tears by the idea. From then on, Pam was present in many ways at every stage of the process. Shoreline Area News (SAN) readers, neighbors, Shoreline College, and Sky Nursery expressed strong interest. A group formed to make the community gardens a reality.

One SAN reader reached out to the Canlis family, and Brian Canlis called to learn more about the project and the history of the Ching family. After the Canlis brothers decided to help make the garden happen, Mark Canlis stepped forward as their family member on the team. One of the first things he did was to reach out to Shoreline College, opening up many opportunities for partnership, which are now underway.

Michael McNutt from GROW arranged fiscal sponsorship and much more. Board members Maryn Wynne, Londa Jacques, and John Ruby agreed that Diggin’ Shoreline be our "boots on the ground" sponsor; both sponsoring organizations already had non-profit status. P-Patch organizers Glenn Herlihy from Beacon Food Forest and Cindy Krueger from Ballard P-Patch gave invaluable advice ranging from how to grow wapato (a native tuber) to how to write a grant proposal.

(L-R) King county councilmember Rod Dembowski; Kathleen Lumiere; Chief of Staff to Councilmember Dembowski Kristina Logsdon; and core supporter Mark Canlis.
Photo courtesy Ching Community Gardens

With the kind and expert guidance of Conservation Futures director Ingrid Lundin, the folks above, and others, the group navigated the grant process, requesting $1,200,000 from a public fund to preserve open spaces. We got the grant! Cori Whitaker, a real estate agent who knows and loves Shoreline, helped us make an offer in the summer of 2022.

Negotiations with the property's owners, Adair Enterprises in Lynnwood, stalled. They did not wish to sell for less than they would have made from their plan to develop the property and carry on their family business and livelihood.

At this point, King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski, a pillar of support throughout, stepped in to help find the necessary funds. Again, we thought we had enough and then were told sorry, but no. Advised to get a comprehensive fair market appraisal, we did so with the capable assistance of Lori King, an acquisitions agent for the county. In April 2023, the appraisal came in at $1,860,000 – more than we had.

Treasures continue to grow amongst the weeds
Photo courtesy Ching Community Gardens

At this point, rather than waiting another year through a grant cycle and likely seeing the property's value go up again, the Canlis family stepped in with a bridge loan from WaFd to make up the difference between the total from previous grants and the fair market value. Coming full circle, the generosity and willingness of the Canlis family to extend themselves brought to life in the present what their grandfather had done in the past.

Once the bridge loan was in place, Lori King led negotiations culminating in a formal offer from GROW to Adair Enterprises. In September of 2023, it was accepted. The sale was finalized on December 29, 2023. And on December 31, 2023, people from this first phase of the gardens met on the property to celebrate and ended up doing an enormous amount of weeding.

A quote by Rod Dembowski sums it up:

 "The Ching Garden is a symbol of resilience and triumph over obstacles. Were it not for the openness of neighbors, a racially restrictive covenant would have prevented the Ching family from establishing their home and garden and sharing it with community. 

"Now community, led by Kathleen Lumiere with the support of the Canlis family and others and backed by King County's Conservation Futures levy, is making it possible for this culturally important legacy to be preserved and brought to life again to provide a place of reflection and learning for future generations. 

"I'm so thrilled to have helped secure funding for this important project and look forward to seeing this important garden restored."

Photo courtesy Ching Community Gardens

Now, work parties organized through Diggin' Shoreline will make it possible to set foot on the property legally. A team of people involved in the acquisition phase of the project is moving ahead to formulate a clear mission and vision, preserve historically valuable plants and artifacts, get rid of the invasive blackberries (a perennial project), and design and build the food forest and raised beds. 

If any of this interests you, please let us know through the Ching Community Gardens Interest Form or contact Diggin' Shoreline. Like the Chings, we welcome you to the garden!

Financial contributions for projects and maintenance are needed and welcome. To donate, please visit our fiscal sponsor, GROW. Specify that it's for Ching Gardens in the "Apply My Donation To" box.

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(1) A "P-Patch" is a term commonly used in this area to refer to a community garden or urban gardening plot. The "P" in P-Patch stands for "Picardo," the name of the first community garden established in Seattle in the 1970s. Over time, the term "P-Patch" became a term for any community-managed garden space where individuals or groups can rent or maintain small plots of land to grow vegetables, fruit, or flowers.

(2) The Beacon Food Forest is a great example of this mixed food forest and raised bed method.