Chico, Sustainable

Jeremy,

I agree that there are all kinds of reasons to garden, and that we need more whole people in the world. Below I will paste an article I received that speaks to the 'spiritual' side of gardening.

But first a quick comment on your garden being sustainable. It is a matter of outlook. You, like me and most people, approach gardening as a consumer, not a producer. We buy stuff to garden. We don't have to buy seeds. We could save them and swap. We could make compost. We could borrow tools (or salvage them). We could be more frugal with the inputs we do buy like water. But we don't, because we see gardening as entertainment. That is the secret of Book Family Farm. They sell produce as entertainment. I was once told people are far freer with their entertaiment dollars than their food dollars. Like many things, gardening becomes sustainable when we change our outlook.

But enough of that, here is the article:

Plants and Empowerment
by Scott McGuire

What is the most direct way to gain an experience of empowerment? In the face of our fears of scarcity and illusions of insignificance, what can we do to actually feel more powerful?

I’ve always found that I feel the most empowered after I’ve chosen to provide care for some plants. Specifically, for me, growing food on any scale, from farming to window-boxing, has been the most uplifting and simultaneously grounding way to counter-act feelings of helplessness and insecurity.

When I grow food, I am proving to myself, in the most tangible way, that there is enough. There is nothing quite like eating a meal that I have produced through my own skills and abilities to demonstrate the principle of abundance. Because the idea of sufficiency is no longer just a concept; it has become real, steaming and delicious on the plate before me. Bringing forth food, for myself and others, is solid evidence that I can serve as Source in people’s lives. It is the most direct and effective experience I’ve ever had of myself behaving as God.

This sense of empowerment comes from experiencing myself at cause in the matter of compounding benefit. By growing plants I am facilitating the improvement of topsoil as well as the enrichment of my loved ones. No greater love hath man for another than by feeding his brethren. Hopes and dreams can be lived and dreamed another day because I have fed them. I have done a great service to my loved ones by stoking their soul fires through filling their bellies. Humans I know will awaken and grow tomorrow because I have contributed to the continuation of their lives today.

Of course, there are many ways we can be of service, many professions that nurture and preserve life. Many are the paths to personal empowerment. But growing food is so simple, so basic a staple to everyone’s life, it can serve as a re-entry point of return for someone who feels so lost and hopeless they don’t know where to begin.

Start at the beginning. Plant a seed. Make a commitment to care for a plant, and that plant will give you far more than beauty, far more than nutritional material, far more than the simplest salad. However each of these may suffice. Make a commitment to care for a plant, and that plant can give you back to yourself. That plant can mirror your true nature, parts of your being you may have forgotten. Plants can do far more than feed us, as if that weren’t enough.

Plants can show us who we really are. Plants could bring out the best in us, and help us to pardon the worst in us. Plants are very forgiving, unwavering in their devotion to their purpose. Between earth and sun they fulfill their pattern with absolute confidence, never wishing they were another, never complaining about what they might be missing, never indulging in the idea they are incomplete.

Plants mirror to us the most noble of our virtues and reflect back nothing of our vices, our self-absorption, our delusions of insignificance. To plants, we matter, and matter deeply. We tend to our small chores for them, and they gladly give their very lives for us, so that we may live.

When we grow them, we become them, as they become us. We absorb their simple dignity as their bodies become absorbed into ours. Plants model for us a fearless stance in the world, a bearing of providership, a pattern of life-giving, a template for being a simple presence on the earth.

There is nothing more empowering than that.
Grow your own, and you have grown.
You have grown you.
In other words; I grow, therefore I grow.
It is so!

Hi,
I have been enjoying your blog. My family has struggled with sustainability for years. We win some and we lose some.
We try to be efficient in our gardening, which is pretty hit and miss. This year we got a bumper crop of tomatoes, after years of stingy harvests (we moved to a house with better dirt and free water). But with plenty comes waste alot of times, so we are always looking for ways to use the maters. I eat a tomato sandwich every day, it's like my religion. Of course we've filled our fridge and freezer with sauce, and they keep on coming. Some late plants we put in are just starting to produce, and how. My husband got online to look into drying and found a few websites about smoking. So we loaded up our little tin electric smoker, added a little alder, and by the next day, our back yard smelled like a gourmet pizza. I was afraid they would smell and taste like last year's salmon, but no. They are so good! We put them in zip bags and put them in the freezer - they even taste good frozen if you slice them thin.

Bell peppers didn't turn out that great though - they just vaporized down to nothing. So we pickle those, and no matter how many we pickle, we can never make them last beyond November (cause they are so good we eat them all).

I thought about attending one of your exchanges, but I realized, we already have a similar sitch going on with various friends. We didn't plant squash this year, because our neighbor laid out a huge squash bed - squash casserole has been a frequent main on our table. Our friend Jen didn't plant tomatoes this year because she saw ours were doing well. That is a suggestion I would make to folks who are planning a garden for next year - talk to your gardening friends. Especially when planning fruit trees - that's a committment!

thanks, nice blog, will continue to tune in - juanita

Juanita,

I would like to see more Chico residents following the model of you and your friends, in which a small group of neighbors coordinate (even causally) what they intend to plant for the good of the group, perhaps 2-3 crops each, and then share among each other throughout the summer and beyond. This could be taken one step further if the group also has among them designated canners, dryers, smokers, or freezers. Next year's incarnation of the Gardener's Swap Meets may help to facilitate this process.

In addition to resulting in more efficient local food production, such ideas strengthen community bonds, which is just as important, if not more so, in today's day and age.

The smoked tomatoes sound incredible, by the way!

--Jeremy