in the developing garden

I have had a garden in every home that has allowed for one. Sinking my fingers into dirt makes me feel alive, human, myself. None of my gardens have ever reached completion. Each one is a vision half realized no matter how long I have been working at it. It used to overwhelm me, but I’m learning that this transitional state is something beautiful unto itself. My father once connected the state of my outer world to a reflection of the state of my inner self. I see my gardens in that reflective pond kind of way. On any given day, they need work. Weeds need to be pulled, seeds need to be planted, everything needs food and water. More often than not, things are chaotic. But over the years, my gardens have improved. I’ve learned new things, found the rhythm of the task more naturally and they have come together with more ease with each year. In this latest iteration, some roots are beginning to grow deeper than in any garden that came before. 

I’ve been wanting to share the experience of cultivating a garden for some time. I have thought of many different categories and descriptors for this year’s growth. It has been the wild garden, the unbridled, bucolic, cottage garden. When the words ‘developing garden’ came together, something clicked. It is always changing, developing with the seasons but also with my whims and the level of my care and intention I have allotted for that day. It is my safe, sanctimonious, magical place. When I don’t get out into it, I function at a deficit. It is the place where I most easily connect to the nature that surrounds me. And in that way, it is not only the recipient of development, but simultaneously its benefactor. It develops me, and presumably any and all who interact with it. 

My formal education has also delved into the relationship between agriculture and development, often as regards the rural communities of the world. When I envisioned this garden, I wanted to find the questions that a rural agrarian must face in practice. I wanted to see how one could support a livelihood through dirt, plants, and animals in a remote and difficult area and if it could lead to a fulfilled and meaningful life. Since our garden started we have faced challenge after challenge.This garden has weathered a global pandemic, a change in location, a massive downsizing, the birth of new life, the loss of innocent life and the ever present threat of the native elk. We have struggled to find our balance in the marketplace managing ecommerce to retail and everything in between. We have yet to own a proper tractor. 

This year’s garden is different, perhaps born out of frustration, exhaustion, or both. It is part market production, part property beautification, part home sustenance and nourishment. Some things are for canning and pickling and for enjoying after the garden has developed into sticks and frost. Some things will be tea to balance our minds and the flowers will spread their natural beauty beyond our home. This year’s garden is for me. I want to see how the birds decided to plant it, how it replanted itself and intermixed with this year’s energy and choices. In this way I am able to straddle many places at once - in the home, at work, in yesteryear, fully present and starting to visualize the year to come. I have found a place where time is an illusion and I am standing in the continuum. When there is abundance I will share it. But I will not manage it with expectation. I will not strip it from every bloom to satisfy only one piece of it. I will let it be something in between, not quite all that it could be, but always heading in that direction. I will let it be a place instead of a machine. I will let it follow natural cycles instead of market ones. I will share what it has taught me with others, with words.