One year has passed since I started seriously researching and growing my garden. I’m a renter so even though my landlord has been generous, there are limits to what I can do. These limits are good though, because they focus and refine the gazillions of possible arrangements down to what works within the the 500 square feet of garden space and the border along the ‘lawn’ in our backyard. Obviously this is the one of the core elements of wise design, making the most of what we have available to us within a given space. So for me, the big question is what does ‘making the most’ of my garden mean, and how do I do it? The answer to that question is what I will be pursuing probably for the rest of my life and is the primary purpose of this blog as I journal my thoughts, dreams, successes and failures in pursuit of abundant, creative and meaningful ways to grow food for myself and those around me.
Behind every garden are motivations and principles that bring it to life. For someone happening to glance through our gate, my garden would simply appear to be a source of food and beauty (well… calling my garden beautiful at this point would be a serious stretch but it’ll get there). The vegetables, fruits and wildflowers do provide these things, but while they are sprouting out of the physical soil of my yard they are rooted in my head. The garden would not be what it is (in all it’s tangled glory) were it not for a series of revelations that occurred over the last couple of years. I had an “aha!” moment when I read Gaia’s Garden , which introduced me to some permaculture philosophies and design concepts. From that point, my world exploded. Suddenly the garden became a partial, yet integral, answer to many of the other issues that have been weighing on me for a long time. The garden held ways to address global warming, peak oil, environmental destruction, pollution, sustainability, the list goes on….but on top of it all, the garden can provide food that TASTES GOOD and DOESN’T POISON YOU. And on top of THAT, growing food can also be beautiful, which appeases the artist in me who abhors the inefficient, rigid rows and completely banal look of the standard vegetable garden.
Now, if I sound a little sketchy when talking about poisonous food…sadly the reality is very disturbing. For example, recently two independent studies have shown that mercury may be frequently present in high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) . One of the studies showed that as late as August 2008, mercury is present in up to a third of popular brand name food products. Mercury is considered to be toxic at very small quantities, and our children are some of the highest consumers of products containing HFCS, so these reports are simply staggering. From the information I have been processing lately it is becoming clear to me that it is just the tip of an iceberg of toxicity, waste and greed that are at the core of the industrial US food system. I am fairly certain that in thirty or forty years we are going to look back in absolute horror at how we produced our food over the last few decades.
I could go on for quite some time on the ton of reasons behind my garden, but the bottom line is: my garden is a small but important way to carve out a better future for my wife and myself. My dream is to connect my garden with others within my community to start creating an urban network of food and habitat and start growing our way towards a healthier, more beautiful world.
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