dirtish thoughts

Sometimes I wonder what my preschooler thinks about all day. Judging by his words, it's generally snacks, candy, and tv, although he is becoming quite excellent at putting together little stories and pretending to be all kinds of different characters.

The other day he turned to me and said, "over there in that corner? That's Dirt Girl." When asked what Dirt Girl did, he said that she laid on her back and planted seeds (he demonstrated this by laying on his back and pretending to dump seeds over his shoulder), and "when she gets up, she's all dirty!" Now that's quite a superhero! I wonder if I can contract her to do some of my weeding this year?

I also gave him my old seed catalogues to play with, and he wanted to make a garden. So this is Ethan's garden plot. It was his idea to put stems on all the plants. :)

A dismal future

Edmonton has recently rezoned a bunch of our most fertile agricultural land as...you guessed it, residential. Because apparently we need more giant houses and less food.

Brilliant plan, Edmonton. Is there nowhere else you can grow aside from the NE corner, which is some of the most fertile land in the province?

I love how our governments listen more to the men with money than to (in this case) the woman with the passion for growing good food. Anyone seen Riverbend Gardens at the farmer's market? They're the ones with the purple cauliflower, speckled beans, and giant carrots. I would be sad to see them go.

It's disheartening to know that our farms can, at any moment, be expropriated for a new highway so that big vehicles trucking produce from California can more easily get to us. Does it not seem highly illogical to anyone else? I guess Alberta doesn't have enough concrete yet. You can already see the scar of oil sands operations from space, why not see criss-crossing blacktop as well? Who needs to see "amber waves of grain" anyway.

It all really fits into the "Big Ag" mentality. Big Ag can get it done with tons of pesticides, cheap labor, and vast amounts of oil-based fertilizers, so why do we really need our small, ethical farms?

Here's the best part - the new area is called "Horse Hills". Unfortunately they're kicking out the horses and ploughing down the hills (probably putting a few man-made ones in strategic places along the way). But in 30 years, no one will even know that it was ever farmland. Few people will remember Riverbend Farms and thousands of people will be struggling to grow the perfectly green lawn over top of what used to be an abundantly fertile place.

Is that the kind of future we want?

~~~~
Postscript: for those who live in the City of Edmonton, here's an email I received from the Greater Edmonton Alliance earlier today:

Hi folks

Well tomorrow is the day! The fork in the road so to speak as Edmonton City Council begins to hear and deliberate around the issue of the farm and food lands in northeast Edmonton. 

Here is how the afternoon will unfold

1:30: the Administration will present the Horse Hill Area Structure Plan to Council and Respond to Questions

- then the people speaking in support of the Area Structure Plan will speak and respond to questions City Council.

- then the people speaking against the Area Structure Plan will speak and respond to questions from City Council

We don't know how long that will take but everyone who registers to speak by 1:30 should have a chance to speak. The Hearings will carry over to the next day if need be.

- Following the presentations, City Council may ask more questions of Administration and may move to approve or make Amendments.

PLEASE JOIN US AT CITY HALL FOR SOME OR ALL OF THE HEARINGS. IT WOULD BE GREAT TO FILL THE OVERFLOW ROOMS ONCE AGAIN.

Prior to the Public Hearings, Radical Roots has organized a POP UP PICNIC. Here are the details:

 

POP-UP PICNIC

& PEOPLE’S PUBLIC HEARING

an invitation to discuss food and democracy

in our city

     Monday February 25^th

 Churchill Square

11:30pm - 1:00pm

*Bring your own lunch

*Bring a picnic blanket

*Bring picnic games (optional)

*Dress up as something that connects you to food (optional). 

Examples: vegetable costumes, chef, farmer, whatever inspires you!

What:

Enjoy a picnic. Then share thoughts with others prior to heading into the public hearings on the Horse Hills Area Structure Plan.

Why? 

Let’s remind city council that we love food, and that the decisions city council makes about development are connected to food and democracy. Let's gather so that we can get to know each other, align our understandings, and go into the hearings as educated and aware citizens.

There will be a few Radical Roots (wearing vegetable buttons or hats) to facilitate conversation. They are registered to speak at city council’s public hearing, and will convey the conversations that come up during the pop-up picnic to city council.

To act justly

He has shown you what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. - Micah 6:8


Wondering what this oft-quoted Bible verse has to do with seed-starting and vermiculite? Let me explain. What DOES God require of us?


1) He wants us to act justly. At first glance, I'm not exactly running for the title of Leader of the Unjust. I don't own any slaves, I don't mistreat my (few) staff, I don't beat my kids - it's very easy to allow myself to believe that I am acting justly. However, my lifestyle gives another view.


When I choose non-organic bananas because "I just have to have bananas and the organic ones are gone", even though I KNOW that the workers in the non-organic fields have been sprayed with chemicals along with the trees, I am acting unjustly.


When I choose to avert my eyes from the poverty and injustice done in the name of creating my cheap clothes, I am acting unjustly.


When I choose to buy food from farms that I know are polluting the environment with chemicals, causing near-irreversible damage to our entire planet which causes desserts to grow in once-fertile land which forces once-prospering families to depend on charity or die of famine, I am acting unjustly.


(BTW, there are other people saying the same thing. In her Ecoholic column, Adria Vassil talks briefly about how our way of life is causing others to get very sick.)


2) He wants me to love mercy. To be honest, I like mercy. It's a beautiful thing. But to LOVE mercy? To believe in it enough to be willing to sacrifice in order to show mercy to others? Am I willing to step out of my consumerist mentality to LOVE those who have been taken advantage of by North Americans for years (ie the developing world)? How do I even do that? How do I love mercy enough to show it to those we have kept in chains by our greed?


3) He wants me to walk humbly with Him. He wants me to depend on Him for my very survival instead of pridefully assuming I can take care of myself. So I try to make gardening an act of humility. I cannot make seeds grow, or the sun shine, or the rain come, or the hail stop. I must choose to depend on God for my daily bread. For me, gardening is a small act of defiance against a system that says "I can have it all, do it all, and get it all, ALL BY MYSELF." Because really, I can't. I am one little piece of moss in a forest of humanity. I know that my choice to have a garden doesn't really affect the world. But my choice to depend on God in my gardening changes ME, and that CAN have an affect.

..and the fun begins!

The time has arrived for the containers of wet vermiculite and itty bitty sprouting things to start taking up my windowsills, countertops, and kitchen table. Up this week? Broccoli, cabbage, and parsley. (just the broccoli is in the picture, the others are some cuttings I'm trying to eke into the land of the living). 

Broccoli and cabbage can be started this early because they are very cold-tolerant. Last year I put them in the garden in April, and my broccoli survived at least two snowstorms (although I think I had them under little plastic hats). Then in June, my neighbour and I were discussing how surprisingly delicious home-grown broccoli could be, while our children begged for more.

This is my lavender - see the little sprouts? It's in a cute silver pail that came from my sister-in-law this Christmas. 

Looking forward to more!

Gardening for kids!

I recently picked up this great book at the library. I LOVE it, and best of all, it's the only book Ethan wants to read right now!

I've been wracking my brain over the past couple years, trying to figure out ways to include my children in gardening, so that they grow up to love it too. I want them to think back to their childhood and have fond memories of putting in seeds, eating fresh carrots, and picking apples off the tree. They already enjoyed a bit of that last year, as Oliver basically decimated my cherry tomato plants and Ethan snatched every semi-ripe strawberry he could find. But this book has even more ideas, and best of all, it's gotten Ethan thinking about planting his own garden.

I think what really drew me to this book is the size of the yard in the illustrations. This is not some giant farm garden. This is story about a mom who digs up her itty-pitty urban lawn to help her kids experience the joy of growing their own food. And along the way they eat some worms, learn about beneficial insects, and even grow a bean cave! I'm totally growing a bean cave this year, although I am technically running out of space. Maybe I'll put it in the middle of the back lawn. Who needs lawn anyway?

some garden philosophy

For me, gardening is very therapeutic. I can't count the times last summer when I was tired and stressed out, and minutes after walking out to work in my garden I felt rejuvenated in body and spirit. After a busy Sunday morning, my husband would urge me to take a nap, but I soon realized that I felt much better after pulling weeds than sleeping for half an hour. 

But more than therapeutic, for me gardening is also spiritual. It reminds me that I need to pull out the weeds in my spiritual life before they choke the good things growing in my heart. One of my favourite garden analogies in the Bible is in Psalm 1: "But their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not whither. Whatever he does prospers." In fact, part of the reason I wanted to name our son 'Oliver' is because it reminds me of an olive tree that does just this. I want his roots to grow into God's stream of goodness and mercy, so that his life can yield good fruit.

This morning, I heard another gardening analogy in church - our Pastor mentioned something he had read that likened the church to a compost heap: keep it all in a pile for too long and it starts to stink (in science speak, it means your heap starts anaerobic respiration because there's not enough oxygen)! But spread it around and it can help new life grow to its fullest. It only needs to stay in the pile long enough for it to turn into something useful - then it needs to be spread around for maximum impact! 

I'm sometimes struck by how selfish we Christians can be: "we need to help us first before we can help others...what about me? I need to be fed!...etc, etc, ad nauseum" and while there is some validity in the statements (the scraps and dung in the compost heap do need to be together for a while to change into something productive), a lot of people appear to forget that we are blessed to be a blessing! 

So if you grow a garden, don't keep it all to yourself! Give because the Lord has given to you more than you can even imagine. If you are blessed financially, don't keep it all to yourself! Sponsor a child, heck, sponsor a whole village! Sponsor a young adult trying to go to university in a foreign country (you never know, he/she could be the president of Sri Lanka someday :). Give to the food bank, because a lot of people really do need the respite it offers. 

Don't just sit around in the stinky compost heap and expect your life to be useful. That'll just make you smell like dung.