The Shark Garden

The Shark Garden The Shark Garden is a nonprofit school, community, and botanical garden that teaches food gardening, science, art, and cooking

We are open to the public from dawn until dusk daily with 1.6 acres of gardens to explore. Volunteers are always needed to help maintain the garden and harvest for the food bank. In 2020, we donated 2,349 pounds of organic produce to the White Center Food Bank, with the help of volunteers. We are a 100% volunteer run organization. We are funded by individual donors and grants and we offer as many free classes and programs as we can afford to with their help. Volunteer speakers are greatly appreciated! Send us an email to find out how you can volunteer or support us with a donation at [email protected] Your donations are tax deductible. Follow us on Instagram or Pinterest Shark Garden

To arrange a tour or volunteer experience for you or your group, contact Taryn: [email protected]

COOL FACTS about our garden:
We donate over a ton of organic produce to the food bank annually. We have been 100% organic since our founding in 2015. We have been a 501c3 nonprofit since 2017. We have an impressive edible plants collection including: 58 different fruit varieties, 104 varieties of berries, 58 different herbs, and hundreds of perennials to attract pollinators, people, and wildlife. Our gardeners are over 84% people of color and we provide affordable access for local families to grow their own food, including many immigrant families. Our students that work and study in the garden are over 86% people of color. Our gardeners speak over 7 languages. We have over a dozen specialty gardens, including: Pollinator Garden, Hummingbird Garden, Pom Pom Garden, Fig Forest, Native Plants Garden, Thorny Thicket, Rain Gardens, Latin American Foods Garden, Edible Flowers Garden, Sensory Garden, Kiwi Arbors, Herb & Tea Garden, Grain Garden, and more to come. We can host volunteer groups of up to 15-20 at this time (due to COVID restrictions). We can host some outdoor events with enough planning, so contact us! We are looking for artists, guest speakers, and musicians to partner with us, so let us know if you have something to offer! Plan your Visit:
Garden Hours: Dawn until Dusk year round
We have plenty FREE parking in the school lot on SW 120th St. We do not have bathrooms or garbage service, so please plan ahead. We do not allow public picking of flowers, fruit, or produce, but our volunteers are often sent home with samples of what is in season. Arrange for a personal tour to also get a chance to try some things! We do not have a lot of shade, so bring your hat, sunscreen, and sunglasses! The garden has some wheelchair accessible areas, but many other areas have uneven ground. We encourage pollinators to live in our garden, including bees, so be cautious if you are allergic. They are almost always peaceful visitors. No dogs are allowed in the garden, except service dogs. If you are volunteering with us, we provide tools, drinks, snacks, and sunscreen. You may want to bring your own gloves, water bottle, and layers of clothing (depending on the season). We do volunteer when it is raining lightly, but may cancel or stop early if it is too wet for people to have fun. Check with your contact person for details. Please send your garden photos to [email protected] or tag us on Facebook or Instagram so we can share them! For more information about our programs and features, visit our website: www.sharkgarden.org
We look forward to meeting you!

Today,  the volunteers harvested 47 pounds of organic produce for the White Center Food Bank.  We worked on some weeding...
10/07/2026

Today, the volunteers harvested 47 pounds of organic produce for the White Center Food Bank. We worked on some weeding and trimming and welcomed new volunteer, Smile, as well.
This Friday, we're going to call the end of tomato season and harvest all the green tomatoes. If you have lots of large green tomatoes (not cherry size) that you don't want, you can drop them off with us on Friday (Oct. 9th) between 10 and noon. We'll be cooking them up for our fundraiser holiday sale on October 24th. We usually make four different sauces: a salsa verde, a green curry, an enchilada sauce, and a green marinara sauce.

Did you get points in yesterday's plant identification challenge?  πŸ€“ A couple folks did,  much to my surprise! These are...
10/06/2026

Did you get points in yesterday's plant identification challenge? πŸ€“ A couple folks did, much to my surprise! These are Purple Jaltomato (Jaltomata rependidentata) berries. They taste to me like a cross between a tomatillo, a watermelon, and a blueberry. Pretty interesting, medium sweet, quite seedy.
They're fairly similar to Garden Huckleberry / black nightshade (Solanum nigrum) in flavor. We're also growing Njama njama this year (Solanum scabrum) that was selected from black nightshades in Africa to be a leafy vegetable crop (along with berries). Feel free to correct my Latin names here, there's conflicting sources. I wouldn't go eating any ole night shade fruit or leaves, since some are poisonous and even these are when the berries are under ripe (the need to be fully black). There are subtle differences between these various species, most notably in my experience, how they hold their berries on the plants and berry size.
This year I've been field testing several perennial Solanum species to see what will actually grow here in zone 8b. Many self seed and can become weedy, actually, but I'm growing three different perennial ground cherries this year too. Those mostly came from the Experimental Farm Network. Jury is still out in those.

Ok,  Nerds,  here's a really rare one!  I'll give you 200 points if you can correctly guess what these berries are.     ...
10/04/2026

Ok, Nerds, here's a really rare one! I'll give you 200 points if you can correctly guess what these berries are.
This is a perennial member of the Solenaceae family, related to tomatoes and tomatillos. The seed seller says they're hardy to zone 8. The deciduous plants are upright up to 4 feet tall. They originate in the Americas and they come in several colors, depending on the species.
Hint: I gave some starts to Wanderlust Nursery and they now offer the seeds for sale.

10/03/2026

This is a great time to bird watch in the garden! The sunflowers have matured into seeds and lots of birds are coming to collect them, like this Stellar's Jay. There's chickadees, nut hatches, finches, and more.

A big thanks to Jake from Stone Soup Gardens for coming to teach our mushroom foraging class this morning! It's always f...
10/03/2026

A big thanks to Jake from Stone Soup Gardens for coming to teach our mushroom foraging class this morning! It's always fun to learn more about hunting and growing mushrooms. πŸ„β€πŸŸ«πŸ„β€πŸŸ«πŸ„β€πŸŸ«

We just had a couple spots open up in the Mushroom class tomorrow morning and there's still room in the Medicinal Tea cl...
10/03/2026

We just had a couple spots open up in the Mushroom class tomorrow morning and there's still room in the Medicinal Tea class on Oct. 10th and the Permaculture class on October 17th. The links to register can be found in our website event calendar. Visit https://www.sharkgarden.org/events-and-classes to learn more! All classes are free and take place in our garden. Join us!

The volunteers harvested another 41 pounds of organic produce for the White Center Food Bank  today. Then we started pru...
10/02/2026

The volunteers harvested another 41 pounds of organic produce for the White Center Food Bank today. Then we started pruning along the western fence line to prepare for our garden art to be moved to a new location. We have 80 pieces of art on two of our fences, made by students and local artists. We're so glad the folks at the City of Burien have found a new home for them in a city park. They'll be moving in November, so there's still time to come by and do a little walking art tour if you want to.

More flavors for our holiday sale!  We've got kiwi berry jam and a pickled corn relish.  I adjusted the spices on the re...
10/02/2026

More flavors for our holiday sale! We've got kiwi berry jam and a pickled corn relish. I adjusted the spices on the relish to be Mexican with cumin and garlic instead of the turmeric and celery seed. I like to have a couple jars of Mexican pickles in the fridge to add to tacos when I make them. Also good with eggs since I have lots of those at home too.
Our holiday sale is October 24th from noon til 3pm in our parking lot. You're invited! Come get your holiday shopping done in one stop for all your foodie friends.
I also started a couple more ferments for the upcoming class, a dill veggie mix and a traditional German style sauerkraut. With cabbages just $2 each at Carpinito Brothers , I'm doing a bunch of flavors for the year to come.

Here's a pretty interesting look at how bamboo chopsticks are made in Japan. Wanna grow your own?
10/01/2026

Here's a pretty interesting look at how bamboo chopsticks are made in Japan. Wanna grow your own?

We visited the only Bamboo Chopstick maker in Japan with their mesm...

Address

614 SW 120th Street
Burien, WA
98146

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 8pm
Tuesday 9am - 8pm
Wednesday 9am - 7:45pm
Thursday 9am - 8pm
Friday 9am - 8pm
Saturday 9am - 8pm
Sunday 9am - 8pm

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