Cultivating a Cornucopia

Meet Kerri.

Kerri is awesome.  She is the kind of person who gives tours of her garden in the pouring rain.  With a Hello Kitty umbrella.  If you can’t tell from her radiant smile, she is jazzed about growing things from the ground up. 

As soon as gardening and faith came onto my radar, I remembered this same “Kerri look” from meetings at our Mom’s Group at Decatur Presbyterian.  Mom’s group is this special place where the tiniest moments are not too small to share, where latte aromas mix with lots of laughter, and yoga pants are the dress code.  We wrestle with frustration, dare to be honest, and seek to be God's people and good mothers.  I remember Kerri talking about her girls in the garden with her – about how their style of gardening was so hilarious and wonderful.  On planting day, she would kind of just let them do their own thing.  And weeks or even months later, there in the middle of the backyard would be random squash or blueberry or whatever it was they had so lovingly "planted" in the middle of the grass.

I am now back in school and she is now back working, but here we are in the rain stooping low to look at celery and bok choi.  

Her yard is magical.  

It is a beautiful landscape of nearly all edible treasures.  Her back deck is covered in grape vines, held up with loads of fishing line.  To one side there is a strawberry patch with a dwarf apple tree in its midst.  To the other side are two urban apple trees that will soon be replaced because the butterflies from the butterfly bushes have decided to eat the apple leaves (who’d have thunk?)!  To one side of the driveway is a row of blueberry bushes.  She has two raised beds full of sweet potatoes, asparagus, bok choi, lettuce, celery, tomatoes, carrots, yum yum peppers, banana peppers, collards, kale, on and on!  She has raspberries and blackberries, lemon verbena (my new favorite thing), sage, and basil.  She has a peach tree and a fig tree.  Kerri is cultivating a cornucopia.

 

I asked probably too many questions about her absolutely breath-taking array of herbs and plants.  And the last question I asked her was why.  Why did she find herself transforming her backyard into an edible playground? 

Kerri responded without missing a beat, “Because it is so very fun to watch something grow that you planted.  And it’s exciting to watch the kids – they grow the food, they pick it out of the ground.  And they just want to try it.  The whole thing is wonderful.”

Kerri isn’t just erecting compost systems and weeding her garden.  She is doing more than feeding her family with fresh food.  She is giving her girls a gift.  She is instilling in them her passion for cultivating, for trying new things.  She shares with them a smile that lights up her eyes. 

They watch when some fruit trees don’t get enough sunlight, they see when the blueberry bushes have to be replanted, they are disappointed when the squirrels make off with all of their grapes, and they get to stick their hands down in the dirt and pull out sweet potatoes for dinner.  They get to watch blackberry brambles grow tall before their very eyes.  They learn about loss and they learn about joy. 

I am so very glad there are people like Kerri.  People who bless the world with a cornucopia – and don’t even know it.

Sowing Seeds

In late August, like a good Presbyterian Masters of Divinity student seeking ordination, I took the Polity examination.  Church polity is the process and procedure book for all situations that may arise in church life, from committee meetings to calling a pastor to a congregation to disciplinary proceedings.  In studying the “Foundations of Presbyterian Polity,” it struck me how the section titled Christ Gives the Church its Life was explained: 

In the worship and service of God and the government of the church, matters are to be ordered according to the Word by reason and sound judgment, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  (F-1.0203)

            I’m not sure if it is because I was raised in a post-Enlightenment North America, in a middle class home, with educated parents, in the Presbyterian church from in utero, or simply that I am wired this way (or a combination of all of these things), but I have functioned according to a structured view of life always.  Ordering of life to the Word by reason and sound judgment makes total sense.  I am your classic Type A.  There is a rule book, there are acceptable ways of operating, and I like to play by the rules.  I enjoy being in control of a situation, and I want to cross my “t”s and dot my “i”s.  My husband may argue that I am not always reasonable, but I do value sound judgment and rational systems that put things into neat categories for my processing purposes. 

            As I have grown older, I have become more convinced that wisdom is not a “color-inside-the-lines” mode of being.  Our standard is higher than standards.  There is something absolutely breath-taking about grace found in the grey areas of life.  Grey is much messier, but so much more worth living than black and white.  That said, my appreciation for spontaneity, rebellious beauty, and real experience does not mean that I am wired to operate with such a free view of life.  I think I want to be more “outside the lines” than I am capable of being.  Not disobedient, mind you, just convinced that as a Christian person in this world, I am called to play by different rules than our society and our institutions condone.  It takes an enormous amount of trust to throw reason and sound judgment to the wind. 

            Yesterday, a neighbor from across the street came over to watch me plant some fall vegetables.  I have never spoken to this man before other than the occasional “hi” and a wave in passing.  And yet, here he is over my shoulder watching me methodically plant my seedlings in almost ruler-straight rows.  My brow was scrunched in concentration, and I was tense all over trying so hard to get the spacing of my kale just right.  It was then that he finally spoke:  “You know what they say about gardeners?  They’re really good people. “

            I did the obligatory Southern modesty thing and explained this was my first fall garden, and we would see how it turned out.  Did he have any advice?  Was I doing this right?

            He just kind of grinned.  “The longer you garden, the more you will realize that it’s really more about the well-placed weed than doing it right.”

   I looked at him quizzically.  To give me a visual, he showed me where he had long ago sculpted raised beds in his front yard, complete with irrigation system, pest control, and lots of really hard work.  He has since taken a “freer,” more organic (no pun-intended) view of gardening since two years ago when he literally scattered a few tomato seeds to the left of his driveway.  

And this is what happened in two years time from scattering seed on rocky ground:

In talking with my neighbor David, and mulling around all that he had told me about care-free, trusting, spontaneous gardening… I remembered an excerpt from a book by Barbara Brown Taylor[1] I had read earlier this summer.  If we truly live our lives in orientation to the Word (Jesus Christ), does it look that ordered?  Does it boast of sound judgment and reason?  

            It was about the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.  You know, the one where the sower scatters seeds on four different types of soil.  The seed on the path gets eaten up by birds, the seed on the rocky ground withered without roots, the seed in the thorns were choked out, and then there’s the good soil.  She remarked that she always hears that parable as a story about her, and she inevitably worries about what kind of ground she is on with God.  How she needs to work harder to turn herself into a better-prepped field for God’s word.  But then she described a revelation.  What if instead of viewing this parable as a word about us as the dirt, what if the parable of the sower is in fact really a parable about the sower? 

“What if it is not about our own successes and failures and birds and rocks and thorns, but about the extravagance of a sower who does not seem to be fazed by such concerns, who flings seeds everywhere, wastes it with holy abandon, who feeds the birds, whistles at the rocks, picks his way through the thorns, shouts hallelujah at the good soil and just keeps on sowing, confident that there is enough seed to go around, that there is plenty, and that when the harvest comes at last it will fill every barn in the neighborhood to the rafters?”

How awesome.  That Jesus could be describing here not a call to fret over our thorns, but a proclamation about the way God operates!  Jesus is suggesting “there is another way to go about things, a way that is less concerned with productivity than with plentitude.” 

            Imagine if the farming industry in our country did not worry so much about productivity?  What if the dollar sign was not the bottom line?  What if plentitude of food to all was the top priority?  What if we had the courage to live as though there is more than enough, and trust the seeds amidst the weeds? 

            I’m going to work on that this week.  I’m going to put my ruler away when planting kale seedlings!  I’m going to envision that the more I sow, the more I have to sow.  I am going to focus on my baby girls, and care less about the havoc we wreak in the playroom.  I’m going to give arbitrarily, excessively.  I am going to practice holy abandon and just see what happens.  I am going to attempt to not worry about my birds and rocks and thorns quite so obsessively and focus more on trusting a God who does not see them as obstacles.  Not sure what that looks like, just yet.  I bet it won’t make very much rational sense, but I suspect it will feel different in a very good way. 

 

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[1] The Seeds of Heaven.

The Mustard Menace

Day by day, we learn a little bit more about life through our gardening adventures.  Today’s lesson: well, there are a couple.

(1)   Pay attention. 

(2)   Don’t make assumptions.

            Here’s the backstory.  My husband and I planted our mustard greens (and various lettuces and herbs) a few weeks ago.  The mustards were looking fairly vibrant, bright green and getting taller all the time.  A few days ago, I noticed they had a few holes in them.  The sign at the gardening center where we bought them had warned us about pests and that if you see any, you should pick them off and spray with an organic pesticide.  So I even knew to look out for “loopers.”  The problem here is that I have no idea what a looper looks like.

            Today I walked out to find half of my mustard green leaves had been chomped off.  Ok, not cool.  Then my neighbor, who has a prime vantage point of the raised bed from her kitchen window, gave me a tip.  She had seen a squirrel in our box yesterday.  Ah-ha!  The squirrel, who has been eating out of our compost pile, who poses for photo shoots to win us over, has totally crossed the line and rampaged our mustards.  Immediately, I’m Googling squirrel solutions.  Cayenne pepper sprinkled on the plants repels squirrels, owl decoys have been known to help, and there is such a thing as a solar-powered vibration-emitting stake that cures your squirrel issue. 

            Later this afternoon, I was out filling the rest of the bed by planting kale, carrots and brussel sprouts, when another neighbor from across the street (who also gardens) came over to chat about our prolific lettuce and offer tidbits from his experience.  Maybe the third lesson from this venture is that it takes a village to raise a crop …  Not only did I learn I had planted the kale too close together, I learned the real source of our mustard menace.  Can you find it?

There he (or she!) is on the lower part of that second leaf.  Unbelievable that even though I was forewarned about loopers on mustard greens and cabbage, I could not find this little bugger to pick it off.  I had blamed the squirrel.  Now that I know what I’m looking for, loopers beware! 

It is surprising how eager our whole street is to offer cautions, advice, and even espionage for the sake of our crops.  While I hoped this whole gardening thing would draw me closer to God and make me feel more connected to the earth, a quite happy discovery has been the community that emerges around seeds in soil.  It’s like it’s inevitable.  Something very captivating and even awe-inspiring about life springing forth from the dirt. Everybody wants to be a part of that miracle.

Change of Seasons

It smells faintly of wood smoke.  But mixed with sweet, damp earth that never dries out.  The canopy of rhododendrons and mountain laurels let through dappled sunlight which dances on stones and gravel.  The mountain brook gurgles by, not rushing like a waterfall or dripping like a faucet.  It travels at just the right pace, knowing its destination and taking its time tumbling over rock-like obstacles to reach home.   It just feels like fall, cool with muted sunshine.  Not a city type of autumn with pumpkin spice lattes and bustling shopping malls.  This is autumn that feels like faded patchwork quilts, smoking embers, sticky marshmellows, and auburn leaves. 

It’s the kind of autumn that weighs on you like a deep slumber in the middle of the afternoon.  It makes you breathe slower and deeper, drifting into tomorrow – not racing.  It’s like a pair of heavy boots lined with fleece.  Or a hot cup of cocoa in a chipped mug. Comfy, slow, peaceful. 

Fall isn’t light and cheerful like sundresses and watermelon.  But it isn’t suffocating like humidity rising from pavements or sweaty like stagnant July afternoons.  Fall is heavier - like layered clothing and heavy eyelids after bean soup lunch.  There is something about this particular fall that feels unhurried.  The summer ended for our family with waves crashing on the shore, full of strength and shock and shards of seashells scratching our knees and our toes.  I, for one, welcome the break from the ratrace and the beach traffic. 

While our destination is unknown, in an odd way I am inspired by the ease of autumn in the mountains.  I don’t want to be here when the snow comes avalanching off the mountains by any means.  I’m not up for the icicles and shocks to the lungs that come with winters in North Carolina.  But I don’t think we will be here by then.  I want to close my eyes, breathe in this mountain air, drink some apple cider, and cuddle with my family.  This feels different, this new season.  I want to soak it up even as I hope to wish it well someday soon.  For now I’m going to swing on the porch and dare to enjoy the magic of the mountains. Even if our view is from the valley where shadows of doubt flicker.  

Ouchy Okra

          Tuesday was my first day volunteering at Umurima Garden in Decatur with Global Growers Network.  I worked alongside a Burundi woman named Everdine.  In mid-September, gardens around Atlanta are in transition.  The summer crops are all but overgrown, eeking out the last produce from almost-spent warm weather plants.  The fall seeds have recently been planted, but have not grown long enough to yield much yet.  Everdine and I spent our morning harvesting tomatoes and okra.  Or rather, she harvested tomatoes – and I harvested okra.

          I knew going into this that gardening is hard work.  It’s hot, it’s dirty, and there are insects everywhere.  This is operation “Make Kate a Tough Cookie.”  I refuse to be a baby about it.  However.  I do want to document for those of you who have never had the privilege of harvesting okra just exactly what you are missing out on – or maybe what you have to look forward to!

          So okra grows on big flowering stalks.  These stalks have tiny little cacti-looking prickles all over them.  Late-summer okra plants were looming over my head and some of the okra that had not been harvested at the right size was large and dried, too big to pick.  The ones I was taught to go for were small to medium-sized, and they didn’t just snap off.  Many of them felt like a wrestling match, where I would pull and pull until off it came.  And the harder I pulled, the more pricked I got by the sharp stalks.  I rinsed my hands off four different times to stop my hands from itching.

           One other little joy about okra.  Ants all over the place.  Apparently, ants like to farm aphids.  Aphids are slow-moving insects that secrete a sweet sticky substance known as honeydew.[1]  The ants “take care” of the aphids in return for carting off this sweet food to eat.  It’s a nifty little process from which both bugs benefit.  Full-grown okra plants are not endangered by the aphids or the ants.  But the harvester gets clobbered by ants.  They were harmless ants, but they were teeming up and down my arms, my legs, my chest, my neck. 

          Between the beating September sun, the prickles, the itches, the ants, and the stinkbugs… I’ve decided that okra isn’t my favorite thing to pick.  I sure do love the people who have plucked them from the stalks and bagged them all summer for my produce boxes!  Okra tastes that much “sweeter” knowing about the itches and the insects.  Never again will I take my gumbo for granted.

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[1] Barrow, Elizabeth.  http://thepapershell.com/ants-on-the-aphid-ranch/