“When we came to Panorama for a walk through one of the stops was at the pea patch. An area just off of main campus, devoted to garden plots,” Curt Rosler said.  “It was one of the selling points for us.”

Curt and his wife Myrna have been living at Panorama since April of 2010 after living in Tumwater for 22 years. Before settling in Thurston County, Curt served in the Unites States Army for 30 years and Joint Base Lewis McChord was his last duty station before retirement.

Before moving into Panorama, Curt and his wife loved to garden and mostly planted flowers. “We were big flower people but when we came to Panorama there was an opportunity to plant vegetables,” Curt said.

Jumping right in to life at Panorama, Curt and Myrna adopted a few plots that already had strawberries and raspberry vines. Once those were cleaned up they added corn, squash and zucchini to their gardener’s repertoire in the first year. Fast forward to today and they have expanded to broccoli, lettuce and leeks. “We are just taking it a little at a time,” he said.

In addition to the 100, 27ft by 27ft, pea pods that are available to residents to grow their plants, flowers, fruits and vegetables in, they can share them with the Panorama Community at Friday Share.

Every Friday, residents who have flowers, crops and harvest to share bring them to Friday Share for other residents to enjoy, and by donation only, pick and choose what they like. “We don’t sell anything, it’s all by donation,” Curt said. Once Friday Share has ended, they bundle up the left overs and donate it to the local food bank, said Curt.

The pea patch is open to anybody that wants to garden, whether they know how or are just starting out. They have plots that are raised off the ground for residents who can’t bend over, they use centralized watering for sustainability and they practice the integrated pest management system by using little to no chemicals as possible.

Check out Panorama City’s garden commercial on YouTube!