Last Night
Last Night
On Saturday, I finally checked out a hidden gem I'd been tipped off to by a fellow South Seattle resident: The Holly Park Greenhouse and Nursery, a jumble of ramshackle buildings and outdoor courtyards right by the Othello light rail station. I'm a little hesitant to write about the place, because it's pretty magical, so don't go there unless you are magical too, OK?
Upon entering, you first encounter a room filled with cacti and succulents, many identified only by their Chinese names, along with rows and rows of hand-marked seeds. Off to the left, there's an open courtyard with vegetables---gallon-size tomato plants for $6.49, six-cell packs of salad greens for $1.39---crammed so tightly, you can barely turn around, along with fruit trees, ornamentals, and every imaginable kind of herb, again with emphasis on Chinese herbs.
Beyond that, there's the greenhouse, a blazing-hot warren of edible vegetation---cucumber plants, okra, kabocha squash, Thai hot peppers, Japanese eggplants. Everything costs a fraction of what you'd pay at a store like Swanson's. I plunked down $42 for a P-Patch's worth of plants (tomatoes, collards, okra---yes, I'm tempting fate---and a ton of other stuff) and headed to my plot.
After getting everything in the ground and cleaning up, I headed to a party in Fremont, which remains, frustratingly, more than an hour away by bike-light rail-bus combo. Heading back after a couple of hours, I noticed that the train was packed---a good sign, but also further evidence that Sound Transit should extend its weekend hours past 12:37 pm, when the last train takes off southbound from Westlake Station.
I ended the night at the new Columbia City Theater, which is celebrating its grand reopening with a series of free shows. The place is magical in its own way: Stark brick walls that look a lot like the Tractor's, a tiny, spooky stage framed by red velvet curtains, a big elevated area in the back for the height-impeded.
Saturday night's headliner was Grand Hallway, a chaotic, orchestral eight-piece led by Tomo Nakayama, whose recent solo performance (video by Cola MusicNerd Anand Balasubrahmanyan), was "intimate and thrilling, his able tenor moving from frail to throat searing." It was a fitting opening night for what promises to be an awesome addition to the neighborhood.
Upon entering, you first encounter a room filled with cacti and succulents, many identified only by their Chinese names, along with rows and rows of hand-marked seeds. Off to the left, there's an open courtyard with vegetables---gallon-size tomato plants for $6.49, six-cell packs of salad greens for $1.39---crammed so tightly, you can barely turn around, along with fruit trees, ornamentals, and every imaginable kind of herb, again with emphasis on Chinese herbs.
Beyond that, there's the greenhouse, a blazing-hot warren of edible vegetation---cucumber plants, okra, kabocha squash, Thai hot peppers, Japanese eggplants. Everything costs a fraction of what you'd pay at a store like Swanson's. I plunked down $42 for a P-Patch's worth of plants (tomatoes, collards, okra---yes, I'm tempting fate---and a ton of other stuff) and headed to my plot.
After getting everything in the ground and cleaning up, I headed to a party in Fremont, which remains, frustratingly, more than an hour away by bike-light rail-bus combo. Heading back after a couple of hours, I noticed that the train was packed---a good sign, but also further evidence that Sound Transit should extend its weekend hours past 12:37 pm, when the last train takes off southbound from Westlake Station.
I ended the night at the new Columbia City Theater, which is celebrating its grand reopening with a series of free shows. The place is magical in its own way: Stark brick walls that look a lot like the Tractor's, a tiny, spooky stage framed by red velvet curtains, a big elevated area in the back for the height-impeded.
Saturday night's headliner was Grand Hallway, a chaotic, orchestral eight-piece led by Tomo Nakayama, whose recent solo performance (video by Cola MusicNerd Anand Balasubrahmanyan), was "intimate and thrilling, his able tenor moving from frail to throat searing." It was a fitting opening night for what promises to be an awesome addition to the neighborhood.
