As Peg Tillery points out in this week’s Dig This, a groundswell of food-growing gardens is sweeping the county. Bainbridge Island, one of the county’s gardening epicenters, has been well documented in local media, but a similar vigor has enveloped the near entire peninsula.

“We’ve been doing this for, what, 50,000 years as a civilization,” Melodie Malcom said, digging into her 10- by 20-foot plot on the opening weekend of the Blueberry Park P-Patch along Sylvan Way in Bremerton. “I think it’s about time we got back to that.”

Though she’s dabbled in the garden by herself for years, Malcom said actually getting out into the community garden has introduced her not only to new people, new ideas, new expertise and new energy.

Community gardens across the county have sold out.

There’s a waiting list starting in Bremerton.

Blueberry Park is a collaboration between the City of Bremerton — which renovated the park into a community garden — the WSU Extension Kitsap Master Gardener Program which will manage the park, the Bremerton Urban Garden Society which will provide education demonstrations every third Saturday, starting with “Extreme Greens” May 16.

Find more at www.bugskitsap.org or call the WSU Extension Office at (360) 337-7224.