Wendell Berry: Why planting a garden is the best place to start in caring for the environment

Picture: A front yard garden in Millwood from last summer.

Following up on my previous post from Wendell Berry's book "A Continuous Harmony," Berry suggests that there is no better place to start getting personally involved in the "cure of the environment" than by starting a garden. Here's his logic:

A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating. The food he grows will be fresher, more nutritious, less contaminated by poisons and preservatives and dyes than what he can buy at a store. He is reducing the trash problem; a garden is not a disposable container, and it will digest and reuse its own wastes. If he enjoys working in his garden, then he is less dependent on an automobile or a merchant for his pleasure...

A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil, has set his mind decisively against what is wrong with us. He is helping himself in a way that dignifies him and that is rich in meaning and pleasure. But he is doing something else that is more important; He is making vital contact with the soil and the weather on which his life depends. He will no longer look upon rain as a traffic impediment, or upon the sun as a holiday decoration. And his sense of humanity's dependence on the world will have grown precise enough, one would hope, to be politically clarifying and useful...

We will see that beauty and utility are alike dependent upon the health of the world...We will see that war and oppression and pollution are not separate issues, but are aspects of the same issue...We will know that no person is free except in the freedom of other persons, and that our only freedom is to know and faithfully occupy our place - a much humbler place than we have been taught to think - in the order of creation.

Comments

[Michelle Sidles]

Nice post. Here's a question. I *WANT* to garden but am a complete novice. I have a raised bed in my backyard that always seems to go awry.

What are the best (top 4 or 5) plants to use when starting a garden in Spokane?

Thanks! :)

[Mesothelioma a Rare Disease]

I always want a vegetables in my backyard I hope many people will try to do this because they will save lots of money.

[Craig]

Michelle,
For Spokane area I would recommend royal purple bush beans, pickling cucumbers, sun gold cherry tomatoes, yellow or armenian zucchini, and danvers half long carrots. Pumpkins, delicata and butternut squash are my top choices for winter squash.

I know a lot of people don't like zucchini but if you pluck them while they're small they are tasty and if you grow the yellow or light green armenian zucs they are more mild and tasty than the dark green.

The sun gold tomatoes are out of this world tasty and small enough that you don't have to worry about them ripening in our short growing season. Early girl toms are good too for ripening but a little too acidic for my taste.

For the pumpkins you can get a bush variety that doesn't need as much room to grow.

For a smallish raised bed I would do one mound of two zuc plants, a row of carrots (don't forget to thin them out or they won't get big), two sun gold tom plants (you'll need to stake them up), and a short row of beans. I'd put the pumpkins and squash in among your other beds of plants.

Also make sure to amend your soil with some good organic material/compost and provide plenty of water.

I always have plenty of plant starts in the Spring from my greenhouse and I'd be more than glad to share and help get you started.

[Michelle Sidles]

Craig,

Thank you SO MUCH! I have gardening books but seriously those were written for FULL TIME gardeners. They were totally overhwelming.
I am so thankful to have a small plan for the spring. I think if I can just maintain something small and then build from there year to year it will be great.
Also, I would LOVE to have some starts from you in the Spring. That would be AWESOME! :)

Do you live in Millwood? I always love going over there. Our first home was right on Argonne North of the River and we miss that area now that we're further out by Sullivan. :)

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge!

[Craig]

I live close to Millwood up the hill north from there. We'll probably do another series of classes on gardening and the like this spring. http://www.yearofplenty.org/2009/04/cultivating-community-classes-in-millwood.html
You'll be a master gardener before you know it.