of course this would have to be my first post! i know most people who know me are aware i am a passionate gardener. there are many reasons for this.
when i was 20 years old and thoroughly disillusioned about where i was heading i had the opportunity to get involved with the community gardens in brook st, nelson. it didn't take me long to realise i had found my niche.
i have learnt so much about myself and the world through having an intimate relationship with a small piece of ground. gardening is not just food, not just beauty, not just exercise, but all of those things as well as an opportunity to experience a world from a wider perspective. it is akin to being a god, as you are able to participate in creating a whole ecosystem and are responsible for how it functions. under your guidance you can create a paradise or a desert.
it is the same in our lives - we can create paradise or deserts. it is through meaningful interaction with other organisms that we come to appreciate how diverse life really is. the spider in the bath, the moth in your cupboards, the hedgehog in the garden - we share with them all and they deserve our respect for doing their best in this human-dominated world.
food security is an increasingly important issue - i am sure you will have heard of contamination scraes, and climate change threatens ever-greater areas of global cropland. growing of crops for biofuels also threaten food production. gardening at home can provide at least a small amount of security. not to mention the benefits i've already discussed.
dig for victory!
4 comments:
The grass is ris, nickbionic, and it's great to see you here. A joy of gardening blog is a marvelous thing and I will keep a watchful eye. Our garden is moving..plum blossom puffing up, snowdrops opened, flowering currant displaying and the ducks cleaning up any and every soft bodied small thing! Great letter in todays STL. Plant to live, live to plant!
Hey Nick. Great post.
That's a very 'zen' approach (referring to the Buddhist sect, rather than me). To look at one narrow area very closely until the entire universe is revealed. The premise being that the universe is reflected in completeness within its own parts. In zen practice, the difference is that the initial object of attention is one own's mind/body.
Nicbionic - a great beginning to a much needed blog. You point out that gardening at home can provide 'at least a small amount'of security in light of external threats to the systems of food production we have now, but I would argue that home gardens, when bolstered by those of your neighbour and any community, school or other local gardening projects, provide significant security to the whole community. We mustn't underestimate the strength of the many stranded rope! Write on!
I mean "one's own", not "one own's".
My keyboard is soo broken.
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