Wind? No problem. Specks of drizzle? Yeah, right.

After nine years, the residents of west Fremont weren’t going to let any pesky weather threaten their celebration as the Hazel Heights P-Patch opened March 21. They were just relieved the wait was finally over.

“It’s very exciting,” said Michael McNutt, treasurer of the P-Patch Trust. “It’s probably been one of the longest projects the trust has been involved in.”

Construction began on the steep, terraced site in May 2009, but locals have been canvassing for their own community garden for years.

When neighbor and namesake Hazel Hurlbert passed away in 2003, the lot next to her house at the corner of Northwest 42nd Street and Baker Avenue Northwest was left vacant.

The lot was later purchased for the P-Patch Trust by an anonymous Fremont couple.

But because the land was so steeply sloped, the site required a master use permit and State Environmental Police Act review before breaking ground, said Hazel Heights steering committee co-chair Toby Thaler.

Then began the fundraising process for the garden with a panorama of the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the Olympic Mountains.

“They started raising money, then they started raising more money," P-Patch Trust President Ray Schutte told a chuckling crowd during the grand opening ceremony. "Then, they asked everyone to dig a little bit deeper. The fact is, in 2010, we have a garden. And, it’s going to be here for many years to come.”

Hazel Heights is also environmentally sustainable. An 8,000-gallon irrigation water cistern under the central plaza is fed by rain runoff from neighboring roofs, part of a demonstration project to reduce storm water runoff pollution into Puget Sound.

And one of the 20 plots is dedicated to Solid Ground’s food program, Lettuce Link.

There is a lengthy wait for a plot in any of Seattle’s P-Patches, said Rich Macdonald, a representative of the P-Patch program.

There are more than 70 gardens in Seattle, and would-be gardeners sometimes wait two or three years for their own plot.

“There is definitely a demand,” Macdonald said. “This site will easily have a long waiting list in a short amount of time.”

Thaler said he’s been so caught up in the committee that he hasn’t even thought about what to plant.

But, Karen Moe already got a head start on her plot, sowing eight varieties of lettuce, peas, beets and edible flowers.

“It tastes so much better,” Moe said when asked why she opted to garden instead of buying prepackaged greens at a supermarket. “I think it’s great to produce your own food. It’s a great community-building effort as well.”

After munching coffee cake, singing garden-themed song parodies and thanking the donors, the ceremony concluded with the moment all had anticipated: the ribbon-cutting.

State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, who has supported the effort, snipped the caution tape in front of the concrete structure, and the cheering party pranced up the steps to their new garden.

And then, the sun came out.