Stone Soup Gardens

09/17/2024

Hello urban farm enthusiasts! Come join us this weekend at the Rainier Beach Farm Fest, hosted by our friends , and . We will be at the Rainier Beach Urban Farm & Wetlands on Saturday, September 21, 10am-3pm.

It’s going to be a day filled with hands-on farming fun where you can learn all about composting, get crafty with nature’s inspiration, and even whip up smoothies using the power of your own two feet! Stone Soup Gardens will be there with our mobile chicken-cuddling coop, the Joy of Chickens, to spread the joy of keeping backyard chickens. Bring the whole family for a day of community celebration in the heart of Southeast Seattle.

08/06/2024

So excited for this Thursday to share one of our favorite permaculture play spaces with the AAPLD!

04/09/2024

Upcoming Classes Update!
We have some exciting opportunities to learn about keeping backyard chickens, mushroom foraging and cultivation, and green stormwater design, led by Stone Soup’s own Jake Harris. Follow the QR codes to learn more and register!

10/09/2023

Stone Soup’s Jake Harris is back with another FREE mycelial learning opportunity! Did you know that you can grow edible mushrooms in your own back yard? Jake will show attendees how to get started growing wine cap mushrooms outdoors. He will also teach about how mushrooms grow in the natural environment and tell about some of the wild edible mushrooms of the PNW.
During this class, to build hands-on practice, we will be building and inoculating a wine cap mushroom bed. Wine caps (Stropharia rugosoannulata) are a choice PNW edible - similar to a big portobello, they have hints of hazelnut and potato.
This workshop is hosted at the Shark Garden in Burien on Oct 21, 10am-12pm. There is limited capacity, so be sure to register soon! You can sign up with the QR code above, or at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-workshop-grow-your-own-wine-cap-mushrooms-tickets-734764509427?aff=oddtdtcreator

09/19/2023

Soup’s back on the menu! We’re back with some exciting stuff on the calendar this fall. Come join us for one or all of these fun educational opportunities!

08/22/2023

In honor of Stone Soup wrapping up hardscape and prep for planting on our second project at this high school, we are resharing some photos from our first project, the RAIN GARDEN!

Last year, after delays due to the pandemic and school scheduling, we were finally able to install this rain garden that was 2 years in the making. This was the product of a few passionate students who took the lead on bringing green stormwater infrastructure to their high school campus, seeing the process through from grant writing, to reaching out to us at stone soup, to participating in a collaborative design process. This project paved the way for us to come back to the school this year to create another GSI project at another site on campus. We loved working closely with these students and helping bring ecosystem resilience to an urban area!

10/24/2022

Tune in this Saturday, Oct 29 for the 2022 Northwest Green Building Slam. Stone Soup’s Jake Harris, accompanied by David Valle .valle95, will be one of 10 speakers presenting on innovative and sustainable projects and buildings which have contributed to our communities and environment. This is a hybrid event with options to attend in person at Seattle City Hall, or online. You can learn more and snag your tickets by heading on over to the organizer page .ecobuilding.guild. Hope to see you there!

10/12/2022

Interested in learning about how to find or grow your own edible mushrooms? Join us for a fungi workshop on October 22 at the with our own Jake Harris. In this session, Jake will talk about how to grow a variety of mushrooms in your own home garden and how to properly identify some delicious edible mushrooms when visiting their ecosystems. Discover the joys of finding and eating fruiting fungus!
Link in our bio to register for this class hosted by .

10/12/2022

We are teaching a fun class on Oct 22 - come learn about farming and foraging edible mushrooms!

Description Are you curious about how to find and grow your own edible mushrooms? Join us for a fungi workshop at Beacon Food Forest with Jake Harris, Mushroom Ambassador and Owner of Stone Soup Gardens! In this session, Jake will talk about how to grow a variety of mushrooms in your own home garden...

08/25/2022

06/02/2022

We have a Winner! The Skyway and Nurturing Roots Community has voted and Design A is the Design for the Black Panther park that we are moving forward with. Super excited for this collaboration around mutual aid and a living monument to the Values and ongoing legacy of the Seattle Black Panther Party to become a reality.

06/02/2022

PARADISE PARKING PLOTS!We are so honored to have planted the seeds of design and helped harvest the rain that nurtures the roots of this vibrant community. Thanks to Whidbey Conservation District and Snohomish Conservation District for this great video.

Join us on a visit to World Relief's Paradise Gardens to learn more about their incredible work renovating a parking lot into green infrastructure and commun...

05/26/2022

Exciting news - we are now hiring for our construction crew! We are looking for full-time (32 or 40 hr) applicants with experience in carpentry, masonry, GSI/plumbing, or landscape maintenance. Come join a team passionate about our connection to sustainable landscapes and our communities.

Head on over to our website (link in bio) for a full job description, as well as info on how to apply. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

05/24/2022

We are so Honored to be collaborating with Nurturing Roots, The Skyway Urban Food Hub and King County Parks on this living memorial to the Seattle Black Panther Party, and a physical call to action for Mutual Aid in Unincorporated King County. Folks who live in/near Skyway are eligible to vote for their preferred design before the end of the month.

04/06/2022

Designing with kids in mind is our specialty and our passion! These are some highlights from a recent project for a family with young children. On these projects, kids are invaluable design collaborators and we love to incorporate their ideas throughout the process.

This project features a pirate ship deck, a pond area with hopping rocks and balance beams, and a 20ft tube slide made from a plastic culvert.

We use whole system design principles and are always looking for mixed-use solutions. This “pond” / swale is a drainage solution for a yard that had intense flooding issues, but it also brings in an element of fun! We constructed a bridge across the swale so that these clients can interact directly with the rain garden plants, and installed boulders and balance beams throughout the space so that the back yard is one big obstacle course.

Enjoy these before and after shots that show how this space has been transformed!

04/06/2022

The end of the March was a busy and exciting time for us at Stone Soup with the wrap-up of a few huge projects, including our installation at Maude’s Garden.

Maude’s Garden is located on the Frye Art Museum campus at the Memory Hub, a community center for folks with memory loss and their families hosted by the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center. This is a horticultural therapy, community gathering and sensory garden space complete with a water feature, interactive musical sculpture, and lots of awesome plants.

We had so much fun on the installation of our urbanite (reclaimed concrete) bed with built-in herb spiral, a flagstone bench top and sea glass accents. Swipe to the end for a “before” drawing (created by our designer ) to see how perfectly our install crew was able to capture the vision of our clients and designers! We also installed a fountain, accessible gravel pathways, and log edging.

It was such a pleasure to be involved in this project and we are so excited to see folks already enjoying this space to its full potential.

Thanks to our crew member for capturing some of these beautiful photos.

We are staying busy this spring and are so excited to continue our work on several community and residential projects!

02/08/2022

We are so honored to finally announce the groundbreaking of Maude’s Garden, Washington State’s first public memory garden. A collaboration with The Memory Hub, a community center managed by the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center, and the Frye Art Museum, this garden will serve as a therapeutic space for members of our community living with memory loss and their families. This garden will provide sensory and restorative opportunities through interaction with natural elements, as well as through providing an outdoor space for drop-in gardening, socializing, and nature-based special events. We are grateful to the Memory Hub for bringing us in on the hardscape design and installation on this project, and we look forward to sharing progress on the reclaimed concrete raised bed, log-lined planting beds, and a fun water feature.
You can visit Maude’s Garden as a part of the Memory Hub’s grand opening on March 23, 2022, or visit thememoryhub.org/garden to learn more.

Thanks to for these great progress pics!