“The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway.” – Michael Pollan
Where we Touch the Earth and Dream of the Sky
Where are we?
To review, as your EcoDharma Doula, for the next five months, I will offer you a monthly contemplation on what is commonly called ‘Getting to Zero.’ Science tells us we have 25 years to reduce our emissions to Zero. We are looking at a carbon reduction diet, which begins by looking at the big picture. We wish to turn the right side to Zero by 2050 or:
(Lighting + Heating + Cooling + cooking + driving + refrigeration + embodied energy + heating water + utilities + gardening + vampire energy) – (Clean Energy we Produce or Offset) = (Everything we Use)
Each month, I try to tackle ‘low-hanging fruit’: those simple things that may have a significant impact. Bob Howard will offer our September offering on turning a landscape into a mixed naturescape of victuals and visuals. I met Bob 35 years ago when he owned and operated Hedgerow Farm in Boulder. He shared with me the French Intensive method of double digging. He shared with me the alluvial history of his location. In the way the Japanese meal blessing acknowledges all the energy that goes into a meal, Bob took me back over the inch-by-inch and foot-by-foot appreciation for the topsoil we have been given: the weathering of the mountains. I remember this like it was yesterday. Bob is a Master Gardener; we are lucky to hear from him! Thank You.
So, without further ado, here is what Bob has to share:
Bob Howard
Touching the Earth article 21 August 2024 bh
Touching the Earth, Dreaming the Sky:
A letter to friends
I want to thank David Takahashi and the Touching the Earth Collective for inviting me to write an article about Gardening. Last year’s September issue was about Enough, about recognizing the right way between the extremes of necessity and extravagance in our aspiration to live more in touch with the earth. I’d like to follow-up on that topic with some thoughts about gardening, and cultivating a life of well-being and Enough.
“Discovering basic goodness comes from appreciating very simple experiences…, the basic goodness of being alive.” Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior”, Chogyam Trungpa
My wife, Dessie, and I live in rural, western Nova Scotia, Canada, on six and one-half acres, a seven- minute drive to the small, historic town of Annapolis Royal. Our land has a large pasture, a woodlot, and an area for the house, lawn, and several large gardens. Our vegetable garden is small by rural standards: 30’ x 50’. I garden intensively rather than extensively. For example, I have eight – 8’ tall trellises and grow many things vertically, like pole beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and shell peas. I use hand-tools and grow things in close spacings as well as in succession so that one bed can have three crops in one year—for example, shell peas in the spring, tomatoes in summer/early fall, lettuce in fall/late fall.
Most days I get out of bed fairly early in the morning, basically with the sunrise, and garden for three to five hours. The weather is beautiful; pesky insects are minimal; the light is so kind. It’s a simple time; I focus on simple tasks, like weeding and harvesting. My senses are relaxed, receptive, and perky. Birdsong rides on the air. Garden soil feels malleable and fecund.
Weeds are sorted into three categories. Woody, aggressive things go in the burn pile. Herbaceous invaders are put in a long term, exclusion pile. Most of the soft young weeds go in the compost pile. We have two compost piles, side by side: one is where I put freshly pulled weeds, grass cuttings, old leaves, and kitchen waste; the other pile is finished and ready to use. In the life-into-death-into-life cycle, the compostable things turn into beautiful black compost ready to enrich the garden with new growth. This morning gardening part of my day feels basically good, calming and energizing me.
“Many people (who) wish to do some practical gardening are at their wits’ end to know what to do and how to begin…, and indeed there is a great deal to learn, only it is pleasant instead of perilous, and the many tumbles by the way only teach and do not hurt.” Wood and Garden, Gertrude Jekyll
In addition to the enrichment of my personal experience, gardening supports well-being through learning and community life. Many of my plants and planting areas are associated with friends whose gardens I’ve visited, or who have given me plants, or design ideas, or whom I’ve simply imitated. This is the best way to learn about gardening—get involved in the garden community.
I’m a member of several garden clubs and associations, from local to international groups.
I recommend joining a botanic garden, community garden, or some group where you can meet people and visit gardens. My garden teacher, Alan Chadwick, called such people, “the local maestros”, those who make close observations and have real world experience in your area, with your local weather, soil, insects, and growing conditions.
Here are a few other resources:
I think the best book for an overview of the garden world is Hugh Johnson’s The Principles of Gardening. He is an excellent writer. He shares his observations (mostly European) at Welcome – Trad’s Diary. (He’s also an expert on wine.)
The best on the web is beyond me. One I like (somewhat focused on Northeast US and Eastern Canada) is Savvy Gardening | Cultivating Curiosity and Confidence. The site is not internally searchable, but you can manage that by searching directly “your topic savvy gardening”.
I also use https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/ and https://www.johnnyseeds.com/growers-library/vegetables/growers-library-vegetables.html?glmmftrdlst
The main thing is to start small. Meet other gardeners. Have some success. Grow.
For a bigger vision, check out-
The Happy Farm at Plum Village: https://thehappyfarm.org/
UCSC Farm and Garden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF4GbmOBDZc
Karmé Choling organic garden: https://www.karmecholing.org/visit/visitors-guide/organic-garden
“Growing one’s own food is tremendously rewarding, the product being, in most cases, so much tastier than anything on the market.” Gardener Cook, Christopher Lloyd
In addition to my personal joy in gardening, and the community of learners/practitioners I meet in the garden world, eating and sharing tasty food is a powerful way to “touch the earth”. I mainly grow food crops for flavour and beauty. I try to grow things that are expensive in the stores, like asparagus, edamame, melons, winter squash, shell peas. I focus on varieties that have superior flavour like ‘Bounty’ strawberry, French fingerling potatoes, or Bibb lettuce. I also grow things for freezing and winter storage. I put potatoes, carrots, beets, leeks and more in our root cellar. We freeze a lot of blueberries. I enjoy cooking and having friends over to share a meal—and maybe show off some special crop.
This way of life reduces automobile travel, energy use, and expenses. We share one car. We have solar collectors that produce more electricity than we use. Living in a rural area, our taxes are lower than in the city. I’ve decided to travel less and have only been in an airplane once in the last six years. We’re retired so we have less needs than a more active family, but still I feel that finding a satisfactory lifestyle that also uses less energy is helpful.
“Consult the genius of the place in all.” Alexander Pope
“(When) an active interpenetration of person and place develops…, the experience may acquire the peculiar yet charmed humility we associate with the sacred.” Arnold Berleant, Living in the Landscape
Voting is probably the most important thing we can do to protect the earth. But creating and caring for a garden and landscape space of “charmed humility” is more fun. I mostly garden to create a sense of aesthetic excitement and calm well-being. Although vegetables are a passion, I spend more time and focus on trees, shrubs, and perennials, to make gardened spaces. For example, we have an entry garden that features rhododendrons (spring), hydrangea (summer), and Japanese maples (fall).
My goal is to create a naturally functioning ecosystem that does not need a gardener. These plants are naturalizing happily in the open shade of native red oaks and white birch. Our Maritime climate, acid soil, and cloud-filtered sunlight support this plant association.
I have a particular interest in hydrangea, specifically the Japanese mountain hydrangea (Hydrangea serrata). Generally having lace cap flowers, the mountain hydrangea is hardier (more suitable to my Canadian climate) than the big, “flower-power” mophead sorts so popular in the grocery stores at Mother’s Day. This interest has led to me to selecting (from open-pollinated seed) and testing my own varieties, and developing friendships with other enthusiasts.
I would like to conclude with a tour of some garden pictures. Image #1 is of native wild cherries beside our front pond. #2 is of green beans on an 8’-tall trellis. #3 is a close-up of those green beans. #4 is of a lettuce variety called ‘Bibb’ which is beautiful and tasty. #5 shows comfrey which I grow for fertilizer. I cut it and add it to my compost. It has nitrogen, potassium, biomass, and is especially rich in phosphorus. #6 illustrates some brown mustard which I grew, then cut down and dug into the garden soil. Brown (or black) mustard is a natural biocontrol for carrot wireworm and other pests and diseases. #7 is a picture of a disease-resistant and wonderfully flavored apple called ‘Sundance’.
Moving on to ornamental plants, #8 is an example of making a planting combination of a mountain hydrangea, the variety ‘Blue Billow” with yellow daylily and pink Queen of the Prairie. #9 is a particularly attractive mountain hydrangea with the name ‘Blue Deckle’. #10 is the wonderful Moyes rose ‘Geranium’ (Rosa moyesii ‘Geranium’) affiliated with a white dogwood, penstemons, and blue fescue grass.
Dahlia ‘Gerrie Hoek’ is #11. Foliage (#12) is a knock-out on the Rhododendron pachysanthum. #13 is the Tibetan blue poppy. Red oak (#14) is another native tree of the Acadian Forest of the NE USA and Eastern Canada, where we live.
Summary
Again, there is so much that anyone can do, and how you harvest is one of them. Gardening helps heal our severed relationship with our overwhelmed world. Gardening is real. To synchronize with Nature’s seasons through a symbiotic relationship is true wealth. I hope to have Bob back to hear about the alchemy we know as composting, and other Garden magic. As Bob practices it, it is clear that gardening elevates growing plants to become a tangible exercise of the Paramitas. Even if you have no land, community gardens, or container gardening is an option; it turns out that harnessing the sun’s energy and capturing it in food for the body and soul is a form of renewable energy available to anyone receiving sunlight. Sunlight is free.
And, remember:
“Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” ~ Teddy Roosevelt