I had just finished planting seeds and weeding in my garden when a light rain started to fall. Few things are as satisfying as this synchronicity with nature. I put my tools away in the garage and looked out over our garden in the front yard. I was expecting a friend from southern Illinois to stop by for a visit. When she arrived, we walked out into the backyard garden and stood under the canopy of a peach tree. We could see the soil slowly turning dark as it absorbed the rain.
We talked about trees and gardens. We were grateful for the gift of water soaking into the soil and nourishing life. The rhythmic sound and feel of the rain were comforting. As we reveled in the falling water, she shared another story about water. She was in town for an interview with a local TV station to discuss her work documenting herbicide drift in Illinois.
She had been collecting leaf samples in towns and rural areas and having them tested for herbicide residues. She found multiple herbicide residues at most locations. As we talked, she reached out and held a Red Bud leaf. "See the cupping and yellowing on these leaves? It's herbicide damage." She saw signs of stressed trees everywhere she looked. I felt my chest tighten, and I thought about all of the ways I could care for our trees to make them more resilient, including adding wood chip mulch and compost, watering, and balancing soil fertility.
Few people are aware of this slowly unfolding disaster, and even the most committed among us are often hesitant to act. We all feel a vague to sometimes acute sense of unease when talking about this issue—we know it is dangerous to question capitalism and the idea of better living through chemistry. My friend is courageous. I am grateful for her resilience and persistence, and I want to help.
Industrial agriculture and the lawn care industry both contribute to herbicide drift. These toxic chemicals add to an already stressful situation for plants due to climate change and the extreme weather it produces. Unlike climate change, which will take a long time to ameliorate, drift could be stopped quickly.
Industrial agriculture and lawn care depend on our being disconnected from nature. Thus, the ultimate solution to the seemingly intractable problem of drift is for more people to connect with nature. One of the best ways to do that is through gardening. DH Lawrence described our predicament in 1928.
"It is a question, practically, of relationship. We must get back into vivid and nourishing relationship with the cosmos and the universe. . . . For the truth is, we are perishing for lack of fulfillment of our greater needs. We are cut off from the great sources of our inward nourishment and renewal, sources which flow eternally in the universe. Vitally, the human race is dying. It is like a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air. We must plant ourselves again in the universe."
Our current way of life, amazing as it is, has deeply impoverished us and cut us off from nurturing relationships. Technological progress has come at a cost, and many people are hungry for change. Gardening can satisfy that hunger.
When I talk to people about gardening, I frequently hear stories about how their parents made them pull weeds in the garden when they were kids, and they decided then that they would never garden again. I think it is time to reconsider our collective perspective on gardening.
We have a crisis of meaning in our culture, and gardens give us agency, purpose, and meaning. Stop for a moment and think about all of the ways gardening can fit into our lives. Gardens are as diverse as the people who tend them. You can start small. Planting herbs in a pot can be a powerful means of transformation. It's not about scale. It is about intention, and embracing positive, hopeful, forward-looking intentions is transformational. Learn to trust yourself and follow your instincts. You can learn by doing; at a deep level, your body knows what to do. Once you begin, the path will unfold before you, and you will be on your way to experiencing the joy of gardening.
One of the best ways to begin gardening is to talk to other gardeners in your area. They will likely be happy to share their knowledge and plants with you. Speaking candidly with other gardeners gives you a chance for heart-to-heart conversations, which are incredibly healing. They can be a step toward releasing the deep loneliness so many people feel.
We like gardening so much that we got a plot in a community garden this year just to grow potatoes. We planted the 10-foot by 20-foot plot with four varieties of heirloom potatoes. I asked my son to research our potential yield, and he told me that we should expect to harvest somewhere between 100-300 pounds of potatoes. We visit our plot several times a week to tend to and admire our potatoes, and we get no end of delight in fantasizing about hundreds of pounds of tubers forming in the prairie loam.
It is fascinating to look at other plots in the garden. Each one contains a unique mix of plants, gardening styles, trellises, and art. We frequently talk to other gardeners about the plants, weather, insects, rabbits, groundhogs, and cooking. People are eager to share stories about their favorite vegetables and recipes.
The engaging nature of gardening resonates with people. Many people are responding to this call and entering into a dialogue with the land. They walk out into their yards and community green spaces and imagine themselves in a beautiful, inviting, ever-changing garden where the alluring scent of roses fills the air and stops them in their tracks. As they slow down, the chorus of bird song enters their consciousness, along with a backdrop of rustling leaves. Dappled light softens the sun and makes everything doubly beautiful. They are surrounded by colorful vegetables and lush fruit. The abundance puts them at ease, and like Ross Gay, they feel compelled to kiss the flowers.
"… Flower kissing, the moving so close to another living and breathing thing’s breath, which in this case is that of the lily I planted six years ago, will, in fact, kill you with delight, will annihilate you with delight, will end the life you had previously led before kneeling here and breathing the breathing things breath, and the lily will resurrect you, too, your lips and nose lit with gold dust, your face and fingers smelling faintly all day of where they've been, amen."
"If we love flowers, are we not 'born again' every day." Emily Dickinson
Wonder, awe, and pollen fill the senses of gardeners and push fear and doubt into the margins. Flowers can help us reduce the grip of our intellect and embrace awe and wonder. This helps us transition from getting through the day to truly living. While gardening, we are connected, grounded, and engaged with life. Our worrying mind that shuttles us through our days and through our lives fades into the background as we are filled with energy. Our minds electric with possibility.
This newfound energy needs to flow. Our connection with nature closes the loop, helping us tend to our gardens and communities. I recently started a men's group called the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. We meet monthly at each other's homes to share a meal. We are all gardeners and foodies, and the meals, conversation, and company are deeply nourishing. We usually have 4-6 guys attend. We have become more intimate, and our conversations are now more vulnerable and open. Whenever someone discusses a challenge they face, others in the group respond by sharing their version of the same thing or something similar. This makes us all feel seen, heard, and loved, which is what we all need.
Our love of gardening brings us together, gives us common ground, and helps us to relax in each other’s presence. This safe space is where we discuss topics like climate change and gardening. The hot dry weather we experience every summer prompts us to consider our multi-faceted relationship with water. We are dependent on access to fresh clean water, yet we pollute it. Fortunately, as gardeners, we know we can enter into a regenerative relationship with nature and begin to heal our relationship with water. Our individual actions coalesce into a larger collective action that is part of the growing local food movement around the world. We are people immersed in green. We have fully inhabited our bodies and are experiencing life as it used to be, life as it should be, life as the realization of a dream.
We enter solitude, in which also we lose loneliness…
True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation.
One’s inner voice becomes audible. One feels the attraction of one’s most intimate sources.
In consequence, one responds more clearly to other lives. The more coherent one becomes within oneself as a creature, the more fully one enters into the communion of all creatures.
Wendell Berry
Growing potatoes , a friend explained, was absolutely her favorite vegetable to grow in her garden. She had a huge gorgeous yard, filled with any and all things our zone would allow. Her eyes lit up, and a smile spread slowly across her face. Potatoes she said, the very best part is that everything wonderful is buried in the ground. You can’t see it until the right moment. I watched her one day, she was like a giddy child waiting to unwrap a present. She dug lightly around her loamy soil, exposing potatoes as she worked.
She shouted, yes shouted “ look at all the nuggets of gold!” She ,of course, was referring to 2” size yellow potatoes. I couldn’t help but laugh, her joy was contagious. I dote on my own garden now. Gardens come in all shapes and sizes. Mine is contained in a very large group of pots. Free fruit and veges we always say. So much fun to pick out your meal right out your door, herbs to enhance it.
“Planting herbs in a pot can be a powerful means of transformation.”
I have watched friends find their happy place again, just by gardening.Thanks for spreading the word Bill , a wonderful post! Glad to hear the League is still ‘tight‘.
I love this!