Home About us Daily Reflections Special Issues Publications Ecospirituality Through The Seasons Donate Environmental Resource Assessment Service     SPIRITUAL GROWTH THROUGH DOMESTIC GARDENING By Al Fritsch, S.J.

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                      Table of Contents

   Introduction
   January -- Year-Round Gardening
   February -- Touching the Earth
   March -- Eco-balance through Organic Gardening
   April -- Eco-Cycles of Life
   May  --  Aesthetics and Floral/Vegetable Gardens
   June --  Resource Conservation Measures
   July --  Quality of Life Enhancement
   August --  Grassroots Training
   September -- Family/Neighbor Bonding
   October -- Broadening Community Relations
   November -- Eco-justice
   December -- Good Home Economics
   Conclusion:  A New Eden
   Endnotes

      
       
                   Introduction

   You can take people out of the country, but not the country out
of people.   This adage is repeated by the many Americans who have
left farm life and now live in towns, suburbs or cities.  We farm
escapees, or exiles, would like to continue and intensify our
country sense of direction, and to do so as a year-round
experience.  

    I am convinced that country experiences can continue on a
limited amount of urban land, perhaps with an auxiliary greenhouse.
This conviction prompts me to reach out and encourage others both
with and without previous farm experience, to find their own
spiritual relationship to time and place through domestic
gardening.

    Gardening is not for some undefined others in an indeterminate
future time.  It is for each of us, here and now.  We have some
limited time for changing a little spot -- and to do so while
pursing our own spiritual journeys.  Gardening is for all who
challenge the class distinctions between experts and inexperienced
and between producers and consumers.  We could fulfill our food
needs with what we produce, and we will do this in such ways as to
enhance the environment.  We can become  gentle revolutionaries who
believe in the power of starting small at the grassroots and
gradually influencing others to imitate our example.  What we sow
will ultimately bear fruit.
 
   In this spiritual journey we find that each season has a spirit
of its own.  Spring is full of energy, summer offers endurance,
autumn is right for thankfulness, and winter harbors a sense of
pensiveness.  Since gardening cuts across the distinctive seasons
it takes on a different character with each month of the calendar
and virtually each week.  Maybe my own experience of gardening will
not be exactly the same as yours, but I'm confident there are some
major similarities, especially in the pattern of the spiritual
journey.  I invite you to discover your own spiritual progress
through the seasons by means of domestic gardening.

    Let's look at gardening for each month through the following:
     
      *  Reflection -- reflect on the mood of that part of the
year as expressed in our own lives in this specific location;

      *  Garden Practice -- see how this seasonal reflection is
characterized by a particular garden activity or emphasis;

      * Gardening Benefit -- link each month with a known
gardening benefit that applies more particularly to the season;

      * Garden expression -- discover how our resulting garden
becomes a symbol of goals we are trying to achieve;

      * Prayer -- offer an appropriate prayer to the Creator that
reflects the gift we seek at this time of year.  

      My twelve benefits of gardening fit in well with specific
months, so I arrange this in the following order:

     January -- Opportunities for year-round physical exercise;

     February -- Enhancement of our eco-spirituality journey;
 
     March -- Growth in psychological health through gardening;
 
     April -- Better protection of the environment;
 
     May --   Beautification of the landscape by gardening;
 
     June --  Chance to practice resource conservation;
 
     July --  Ensuring a higher quality of life;
   
     August -- A training model for folks at the grassroots;
 
     September -- Ways to improve family/neighbor bonding;
 
     October -- Improvement of community and global relations;
 
     November -- A powerful statement for social justice; and
 
     December -- Economic benefits from growing your food.

     My invitation is that you consider your own long-term,
budding, or hopeful gardening experience.  Discover opportunities
for openness to God in and through gardening wherever you are.
Keep good gardening notes; spend time just being present in the
garden; record reflections; spread the word; and share insights
with this author.


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     January -- Year-Round Gardening
           
     Reflection:  January begins the year with New Year's
celebrations and resolutions.  It is the time of fresh starts, of
staying close to the fire, of watching snow storms from the window,
of cracking nuts and eating from the stored pickles and fixing soup
from the canned, dried, deep frozen, and even fresh greenhouse
produce.  It is also a time to gather greens such as Swiss chard,
kale and collards from the greenhouse, cold frames, or both.  For
the year-round domestic gardener it is a time of planning and
ordering seeds and of sowing the very first ones in the greenhouse.
If your greenhouse is solar and attached to the house, you rejoice
to receive a free solar heating supplement on sunny winter days.
Working in the greenhouse preparing for spring gives opportunities
for obtaining the two ingredients of good health, namely, fresh air
and plentiful sunlight.


                    ---------------------

     Participating in Physical Exercise.  January is a time to be
tempted to become a couch potato or to backslide on physical
exercise.  In the normal growing year gardening is a readily
available, low-cost and less strenuous source of physical activity.
Better health in the long run means less medicine and fewer
hospital bills.  Savings also extend to fees and time spent at
health clubs and to the purchase and maintenance of expensive
exercise equipment.  Furthermore, the year-round opportunity for
gardening reduces stress in all of the seasons and thus invites
shorter and less extensive vacations.  
       
    Year-round Spare Leisure Time.  Actual gardening activities
are quite varied, and the exercise calls into service many of our
bodily muscles.  If the garden is not overwhelming in size or weedy
condition, it allows participants to work at their own pace.
Normally, what would be termed garden work is actually a leisure
activity that can extend to the traditional non-growing, cooler
portion of the year.  In California and the sunny climes of the
American South gardening can easily be a year-round exercise, but
it can be a challenging exercise in more northerly winter seasons.
Even in harsher climates some assistance from human-made
structures can extend the growing season and lengthen autumn and
spring growing seasons.

    Choosing Year-round Devices.  The permanent or temporary cold
frame and greenhouse provide virtually year-round exercise
through seasonal gardening even in normally non-growing months.
Using an attached or free-standing solar greenhouse has the effect
of being a seasonal extender in both directions (later autumn and
earlier spring use).  In milder climates these devices can be used
throughout the winter for more hardy plants such as brassicas,
Swiss chard, onions, certain herbs and radishes.  

    Following Gentle Exercises.  Gardening allows us to set our
own pace.  At times the work may be too strenuous and thus require
more able bodied assistants to till or harvest crops.  An elderly
or feeble gardener makes proper adjustments by taking advantage of
early morning or late evening hours when the sun is less intense.
In gardening, virtually all body parts are used -- legs, arms,
back, etc.  This broad-based physical exercise, along with fresh
air and full spectrum sunlight, permits one to remain quite healthy
even without doing other exotic exercises.
 
    Knowing Ourselves.  Too often today's youngsters want to be
grown-ups and elders seek to remain young.   Gardening helps us
overcome this dissatisfaction with our age and be comfortable with
our bodily limitations as senior citizens and our inexperience as
younger people.  Respecting all forms of limitations -- even those
of age -- is part of successful gardening.  Youth prefer to ask
questions, note results, experiment, and seek advice from available
resources.  Older folks need to plan better, set limited goals,
pace the physical exertion, and enlist more able-bodied assistants
for certain tasks.  Domestic gardening helps us know ourselves.

    Instituting Wheel-chair Gardening.  Older folks can garden in
or out of a greenhouse with an adjustable growing table or with
permanent super-raised beds or trellises.  Some crops can be tended
more easily by people with disabilities or those who are more
confined.  For instance, a wide variety of greens, strawberries,
certain vines and root crops can be grown in such ways that the
physically challenged can tend them.  On the other hand corn,
squash, watermelons, pumpkins, okra or pole beans may be impossible
to reach and harvest by the physically impaired because of weight,
height or extensive space considerations.  Also, certain garden
instruments (e.g., hoes with extra long handles, stools with
rollers, etc.) can be designed and made available for such persons.

   Planning Annually.  One ideal January exercise is to design the
garden and plan the gardening process for the entire year.  One
caution is not to let excessive planning become straight-jackets
that hinder future innovation.   An ideal practice is to tithe your
total year's work time for planning and design and put the emphasis
up front when there is less work to do outdoors.  January is
already time for sowing seeds in trays of those plants that you
cannot easily find in garden supply stores, like celery, kohlrabi
or heirloom tomatoes, along with many flowers.  Beginning gardeners
often neglect planning, and depend on impulse.  

    Considering all Factors.  Remember, garden planning and seed
variety selection require the weighing of a number of factors.
The gardener/artist knows that design is necessary to execute a
mind's eye vision onto stone or canvas or a longer blooming
landscape.  The garden becomes our canvas and, through pictures
taken at a definite location for each of the growing months, the
gardener as artist draws a blueprint of the coming season. An alert
artist realizes that successions of flowers are needed to fill in
gaps when others die back or when some fail to produce anticipated
blossoms.

     Record-Keeping.  January is the season for resolutions and
one worthwhile suggestion is to keep records throughout the growing
year.  Some, like my great Uncle Louis, kept garden records (types
and times of plants and yields) in red diary books for about forty
years and filling two library shelves.  I am less detailed but keep
a large sheet with type of vegetables for each month and the yields
rounded to a quarter of a pound.  I also have an annual garden map
showing when rows were planted and where the various vegetables are
located.  By monitoring yields I am more able to know what grows
best and where to emphasize certain plantings for the forthcoming
outdoor growing season.  

      A Wholesome Garden.  A well-tended garden is a sign of love,
work and care.  It tells others that we focus on this place with
our own physical efforts.  Its improvement tells something about
our own personal endeavors to stay healthy.  The garden is our word
to the rest of the world.  We are reinvigorated through gardening,
and through our ongoing improvements our gardens begin to produce.
The garden invites us in many ways: to get physical exercise
through land improvement practices;  to take our time and pace
ourselves;  to become filled with the privilege to do joyful work
-- the attractive force of the domestic garden.  From the original
Eden trudged our forebears loaded with guilt into a world of
stressful toil.  Let's accept the garden's invitation to become
reinvigorated and use healthy garden produce to nourish us and
improve our health.  

                        -------------

                 The Gardener's Gentle Wish

   Oh, Provident One, You see our limitations.  You know our need
for daily exercise so that we can acquire and retain positive
attitudes about life.  You prompt us to pace ourselves, to keep
active and well-balanced, especially as we advance in years.  You
help us discover new ways of personal refreshment through daily
physical exercise.  You are the Energy and Health Giver of our
souls and we need to acknowledge this.  Our health is a gift that
we appreciate all the more when we see those lacking in portions of
it.  Help us who dwell in your garden planet to stay physically
healthy so that we can better serve you and enhance our service for
and with others.  

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   February --  Touching the Earth

   Reflection:  For me February may be the shortest month in
actual time, but the longest in psychic time.  Will the winter ever
end?  What will overcome cabin fever and the itching to get
outdoors and turn the soil?  The lengthening days are welcomed, as
is the sound of the cooing mourning doves -- the first harbingers
of spring.  It is the month of Ash Wednesday, when we hear the
awesome words "Remember that we are dust and into dust we shall
return" -- and we receive the mark of our humility on the forehead.
For many of us it is the beginning of outdoor planting and involves
sowing peas and planting onion bulbs, completing the greenhouse
seeding, and thinning and weeding the budding seedlings.  We
rejoice with the faint hue of yellow green as it appears on the
willow trees, and we strain to discover the budding crocuses, the
greening wild leeks, the first snowdrop, and the blooming
chickweed.  We may find a stray blooming dandelion and greet the
first returning robin.    

                     ---------------------

     Our life's journey is epitomized through gardening -- in the
changing of the seasons and waxing and waning of the daylight, in
the germination, the pollination, the maturation of plants, and the
harvesting of ripe produce.  The key to healing the Earth is to
touch it, just as physical touch can help heal the human body.
Gardening is a good (but not the only) way to touch the Earth
meaningfully.  However, domestic gardening is one of the most
accessible ways for many of us.  Through gardening we feel the
Earth, how warm or cool, how moist or dry, how granular or fine,
how firm or soft, how shallow or deep rooted, how well inhabited
with earthworms.  This sensual communication with the Earth tells
us much about ourselves, our origins, and our ultimate destiny --
from dust and to dust.  We spring from the Earth and will return to
it, but with a special spiritual uplifting that goes beyond.
Through this knowledge of ourselves we are made whole, while
healing the Earth.  The garden gives us location, focus, release of
stress, a sense of worth, and power to overcome obstacles.
   
    Sacred Rhythms and Spirituality.  Some make a clear
distinction between religious worship and spiritual practice.
However, deep spirituality is expressed in our authentic religious
worship, and our religion cannot help but color our spirituality.
Those who call themselves Christians or adherents of other
traditional religions do not have to neglect or change religious
practice to have a deeper sense of spiritual growth that includes
being attuned to the Earth.  In fact, finding God in all creation
is part of an authentic and universal religious experience.  God's
presence in these creatures and their interactions with others is
detected through our rational powers.  Gardening becomes a
spiritual act on our way to God, Who invites us to enter into the
rhythm of nature and the seasons, to understand and appreciate the
natural growth and creative processes, and to respond to an
opportunity to touch the Earth in a meaningful fashion.  Gardening
uplifts us and allows us a more profound experience through the
prayer of touching soil.  This wordless touch gives praise to God
and flows from our hands and hearts and minds.

    Inherent Modern Difficulties.   The modern complex culture is
one of alienation from the Earth.  Approximately half the world's
people live in urbanized areas, far removed from natural phenomena;
this makes the universal desire for touching the Earth all the more
difficult to fulfill.  People are separated from the urge to touch
the Earth.  Distance occurs through increased blacktop and concrete
surfaces, sterile lawn grass and artificial turf, and lighting at
night which removes the natural moonbeams and the blessed darkness
that is part of life's necessary rhythms.  People lose the sense of
Earth time and Earth space.  Their insensitivity is contagious and
spreads to others.  Their condition makes us ask:  "How can there
be an authentic eco-spirituality, if there is no contact with the
soil itself?"

     Gardening as Sacred Re-Creation.  Gardening extends the
redeeming action of making this Earth holy.  It engages the soul as
well as the body, an act of communion with the Creator, a
participation in a total oblation or sacrifice that makes a
profane Earth into a holy place.  Merely wishing to garden is not
sufficient; the act of making holy or re-creating the Earth
involves careful tending of the garden space.  By doing so we enter
into the ongoing creative process, for creation did not cease
centuries ago.  Gardening is not creating from nothing, but rather
involves minerals, soil, air, water, seeds, helpful insects and
mammals, and a willingness to work.  Believers experience the
invitation to participate in the creative act through their
incorporation in the divine family and the nearness to the Creator.
We learn more about ourselves and our world.  Through gardening,
people experience birth (planting and watering), life (cultivating
and tilling), and death (harvest), a reminder of being part of the
natural processes.

     Other's Loving Touch.  Creative participation involves
encouraging people to touch the Earth -- those living complex
lifestyles, those who age too quickly, the embarrassed and
diffident, and those who think they have very important things to
do.  Yes, it may be embarrassing at first for it involves getting
your hands dirty.  But soften the invitation by helping aspirants
to anticipate the hurdles.  Truly, touching the Earth is necessary
for gravediggers, mud puddle players and potters.  However,
gardening as a common Earth touching experience is for all of us --
young, middle aged and old alike.  We're called to touch the soil,
and to see this as a golden opportunity.  Some prefer a ceremonial
touching of soil in a ritualistic setting, accompanied by poetry,
song, dance, procession, and other symbolic or liturgical
activities.  Others are less drawn to ritual or think such
ceremonies may hurt plants and compact soil.  
 
     Sacred sites might offer opportunities to touch the Earth.
Sacred sites are those set aside and designated as holy, where the
senses are fully stimulated and where people can rest, find God and
find themselves.  These are places set apart from the more
stressful world which are known to act as magnets to draw believers
together.  Certain springs and rock formations have been known from
pre-historic times to involve the sacred in some way.  These were
often taken over and blessed by Christians and others in later
centuries.  While in one sense the whole Earth is redeemed and
sacred, special places are for us to experience an uplifting, a
spiritual consolation, and introduction to Divine Mystery.  God
does not need them, but we do.  To enhance this sense of mystery,
sacred places are generally made secluded and quiet, partly or
fully enclosed.

    The Garden as Sacred Space.  The domestic garden is an ideal
candidate for sacred space; it is already a place we have come to
love.  While things grow there is a certain privacy to some of the
corners of the land.  There is a sense of quietness and closeness
to the soil.  If we touch the soil reverently, then this act makes
it all the more sacred.  Our garden is a hallowed space spiced by
love and fertilized by sweat.  It shares with all gardens in
bearing witness to a long history containing the devotion and
tenderness of own forebears, even on distant continent garden plots
-- the repositories of past gardening experience.  Sacred space is
more than private space;  it is recognized by a wider audience for
its sacredness.  The commitment to dedicated improvement makes this
particular space or site inviting for people who desire to come,
see and reflect.  

                     ----------------

     The Gardener's Expression of Loving Sacrifice

     God, You are Love.  You invite us to become ever more loving,
and to see that our humble gardening efforts are responses to your
invitation to grow spiritually.  Teach us to touch this Earth
tenderly, to feel the warmth of your love found in the creatures
all around us, and to demonstrate that love in the way we treat the
garden plants we nourish and grow.  Give us a deeper sense of
respect for all who seek You in their own life's journey.  Grant us
the willingness to break out of ourselves and to become more whole
and loving in our relations to others and to lead them to need and
find sacred spaces in their own world.  Inspire us to communicate
with neighbors and to even talk to plants and animals.  Help us
extend our sense of belonging to all of God's creatures.

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    March -- Eco-Balance through Organic Gardening
 
    Reflection:  March plays out the last of winter with the
unexpected late snowfall.   The agricultural humors quicken within
us, swept on by the gusty breezes, and we increasingly become
impatient for spring.  It's basketball tournament time and the St.
Patrick's Day parade, and Lenten fasts and final preparations for
the social season of spring.  March is not all play and prayer;
the winter pace quickens as spring approaches.  It is a time to
test the soil, a time to gain self-confidence that we can address
basic garden needs in the coming year.

    Wild garlic and the greening dandelion invite the first mess
of the season's wild greens.  The first spears of tulip leaves and
the purple and white violets, snowdrop, crocuses and other very
early flowers give us a sense of springtime coming on the Equinox.
By the month's end forsythia branches are covered with yellow
flowers giving a delight to eyes in need of color change and whole
households craving the sun's stronger rays.  This is the season
when we make decisions on how, when and where to turn the soil,
prepare the beds, plant the brassica seedlings (kale, collards,
kohlrabi, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower) and
add the early birds -- spinach, carrots, radishes, and leaf, Bibb
and Romaine lettuce, as well a large number of other greens.  We
consider various gardening methods and select the one that suits us
best.  Some plant potatoes and sow clover near St. Patrick's Day.
It is a time to think of spreading the wild flower seed in the
once-lawned areas to form an informal wildscape -- an ornamental
landscape planted in a succession of colorful wildflowers, which
are accessible for admiration by residents and neighbors alike.

                    ---------------------

    Assurances.  Numerous old and new gardening methods can be
used by individual gardeners.  Through proper selection the
gardener and table mates can be assured that the food is organic
(chemical pesticide- and commercial chemical fertilizer-free) and
not contaminated by hazardous materials or unregulated growing
practices.  No such assurances are possible at this time at the
ordinary supermarket, even though some organic labeling does occur
at specialty markets.  The challenge for domestic gardeners is to
keep prices affordable and appearances acceptable.  Today, more and
more fresh produce comes from distant states and lands and much
slips past an overburdened food quality surveillance systems.
Chemical contamination from pesticides is an ever increasing
concern as understaffed regulatory agencies are hard pressed to
monitor heavily laced residual chemicals on fresh produce.
 
    Organic Food Advantages.  Chemical pesticides that have been
used widely since the Second World War are highly toxic, causing
numerous injuries and deaths through handling.  Some with chemical
sensitivity may trace their maladies to pesticide contaminated
foods.  Costly and expensive pesticides may not discriminate and
thus harm friendly garden creatures.  Furthermore, they are
dangerous when stored around the house, difficult to dispose of
properly, and they contaminate the soil.  Few gardeners are trained
to handle these chemical pesticides safely or to decontaminate
fruits and vegetables grown with chemical pesticides.  Besides
acute toxicity, pesticides can create conditions of chemical
sensitivity among larger numbers (some estimate 15 percent of the
total population).  Conversely, organic (pesticide-free) gardening
techniques are less costly, easier to handle, and are
environmentally friendly.  Organic produce may not look perfect,
but food safety is more than the shiny and waxy appearances of
chemically-contaminated food supplies.

    Certification is meant to guarantee consumers a quality
product.  The certification of organic homegrown garden produce has
been protected at the state level through annual review of
practices, soil testing, and personal visits by the certifying
agency.  This allows the public guaranteed product quality, which
can be displayed by a tag on the produce or by signs at the place
of sale.  The only wrinkle is that my philosophy expounded here
promotes all consumers also being growers, but that is not possible
in this real world of folks who are busy, traveling, impaired, or
elderly.

    Holistic Health.  Preserving our mental health includes
protecting our physical health, which affects our mental state.  We
seek to balance our physical and mental states and find that
gardening may play a key role.  The new springtime invites us all
to get fresh air and full spectrum sunlight, to listen to children
squealing in sheer delight as sap starts rising in the tree veins.
Being outdoors gives a fresh outlook on life, and heavy problems
evaporate and give us a true pause that rejuvenates.

   Becoming our Land.  We are not God; we cannot do everything.
Our modest efforts are important, but limited in the scale of world
events.  We can hardly become overly inflated by our individual
contributions, for we are not miracle workers.  While each gardener
is unique and maybe gifted, all collectively contribute to the
whole -- and are needed for the health of the whole.  Our limited
endeavors as part of the greater whole have a ramifying potential,
may be inspirational and have catalytic effects on those around us.

    Vital roots make the whole plant -- and planet -- healthy and
vigorous.  Gardening forces us to extend the value of land beyond
mere economics.  Yes, this land is able to produce our food and
make us better for working with it.  We come to know that we become
our land when we eat and assimilate the produce grown on it.  We
should realize how much the land and its produce become part of
each of us, and our well-being depends on our food -- especially
locally grown food.

    We do not wish to "become" some distant state or country like
others who buy all their food at the supermarket.  Rather, through
domestic gardening we become our locality and land, and our land
becomes us.  We are truly localized and rooted in this place,
something missed by those getting food from distant countries or
states.  Besides, we are better able to know and control the
quality of the food grown in our neighborhood.

    The Garden, A Humble Setting.  Sound psychological health
involves knowing ourselves.  Sometimes I get down and out,
bone-tired and feeling that there's little success to my efforts.
Others may label this a short-term depression -- something that
accompanies the cabin fever of late winter.  We don't all panic and
run out to see a doctor or obtain an anti-depressant prescription.
By just walking in the garden there seems to come a new-found peace
in my soul.  It could be at any time of the year, whether in the
bleakness of late winter or the profuse greenery of mid-summer, but
the garden works wonders by just being there for my coming.  I
can't begin to explain what goes on; well-worked gardens are like
old pet dogs.  They uplift the spirits.  The garden is a locus of
loving care, whether done today or at some time during the year.
Loving concern has been given and in my moment of need, it is
returned.  That mutual loving process gives new meaning to life and
makes the little mishaps and obstacles seem so very trivial.  The
domestic garden is capable of all this, and yet it is a most humble
setting.  

                     ---------------
         
            The Gardener's Request for Humility

   Oh Master Gardener, our personal gardens are not perfectly
tended because we are not yet perfect tenders.  We become more
perfect over time, a maturation that resembles the garden growing
to full productivity.  We enhance this growth process through
diligent care of beings entrusted to us and we do this through your
guidance and grace.  We are mere sowers of seed, not master
builders.  Keep us from losing heart, and give us the energy to
continue to take pride in the modesty of our work.  Let that pride
be not in our achievements, but in those achievements You deem to
accomplish within us.  Give us confidence that the little we do
will add up to much more in the years to come.

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    April -- Eco-Cycles of Life

    Reflection:   April's buds, showers and emerging greenery
freshen the tired and sleeping landscape and renew us in Easter
joy.  It is more than a time of colored eggs and hopping bunnies.
April is the month of daffodils, lilacs, blooming wisteria, wild
geraniums, of the returning whippoorwill and 120 other bird
species, of geese going north, and young folks just going
somewhere.  It is the time of turning the compost pile and
spreading the more aged contents on the garden plots.  It is the
season for sowing spinach, beets, carrots, lettuce, radishes,
endive, and of planting tomatoes, broccoli, Chinese cabbage, and
other seedlings that have been growing in the greenhouse.  For us
who are early gardeners and don't hesitate to protect the freshly
planted with temporary covers, April is the month when the garden
essentially fills with rows of vegetables.  For those of us living
in moderately temperate climates the last half of April is
generally frost-free and time for planting of hills of corn, beans
and squash -- the Native American three sisters.

                 -------------------------

    Green Gardening.  Gardening allows us to enter the natural
cycles of life and to live more sustainable lives.  Good gardening
is very good environmentalism in many ways.   We clear and protect
productive land and use it well with proper fertilization, covering
it in winter, and control weeds during the growing season.

    In order to practice good ecology and be in harmony with the
natural cycles of growing things, we select specific ecological
garden practices:

    * Plan and design to exhibit the most intensive methods for
gardening, such as interplanting of one crop while another is
maturing.  This allows us to use less garden space and grow more
produce on it in a given area;

    * Use native or heritage seed and seedlings, or at least
varieties that do not tend to escape and become worrisome
invasive species;

    * Initiate organic gardening methods that do not use chemical
fertilizers or pesticides but use biological or other control
methods, plus available composting materials.  Such
chemical-free places instinctively attract birds and friendly
insects;  

    * Use small, energy efficient implements;

    * Consider, where possible, beautification designs through
interplanting of flowers, herbs, berries, fruit, and vegetables;

    * Irrigate with groundwater or rainwater collected in
cisterns;

    * Use seasonal extenders (see January note);

    * Practice crop rotation and allow land to have a sabbatical.

    Agribusiness.   The corporate enterprise of food production is
quite different from green gardening goals.  Such practices require
sizeable expenditures of energy for commercial transportation, food
processing and marketing.  For agribusiness products one must also
include energy costs of the wasted produce in picking, preparation,
freight, packaging for market and the marketing process itself.  Up
to half of agribusiness produce is wasted in the process.  Though
some of our domestic produce is never consumed, still it can be
easily composted as garden and yard wastes -- something the
agribusiness  finds difficult to do.  Agribusiness, or corporate
farms, include large-scale feedlots which have livestock crowded in
muddy lots and in unhealthy conditions.  These are fed hormones and
growth regulators which eventually enter the food supply.  These
farms use heavy equipment which causes soil compaction.  The single
crop fields of produce, which encourage pests, require heavy doses
of chemical pesticides.

    Gardening -- A Positive Alternative.  Good environmental
practice is needed to counter resource misuse and abuse, the
presence of which can easily wear us down and discourage us.  We
need positive alternatives to advocacy against agribusiness and bad
environmental practices.  When I returned to Appalachia from
Washington, DC in 1977 it became apparent that in order to keep
sane in such an environmentally devastated region I must give as
much time to improvements as to exposing pollution sources.  Now we
spend half of our time on solar and appropriate technology
demonstration and on raising organic gardens.  Proper gardening is
positive environmentalism; it makes visible to the total community
the hopes for a better world.  It is a sure sign that people even
in damaged areas of the world can start at the grassroots and
reintroduce sustainable living practices.  

    Domestic Gardening as Sustainable.  Domestic gardening can
contribute to reduction of the pollution that could be caused by
chemical fertilizers or pesticides, mowers and tillers, and
improper disposal of kitchen or yard wastes.  Fuel required to
transport food is no longer needed.  Larger quantities of
home-grown produce mean less consumption of resource-intensive meat
and other animal products.  Thus ornamental lawns turned into
productive gardens, especially in affluent countries, could
substitute for the rapidly disappearing arable land.  These
domestic gardens need not be large, for busy people find that
smaller is better.  Small plots do not need expensive tractors
which compact soil and use non-renewable fuel.  Rather, they use
low-cost and easily stored hand tools or small mechanical tillers.

    Knowing Climate and Weather Conditions.  Gardeners know when
the sun rises and sets.  We become attentive to upcoming severe and
mild weather conditions; we learn to become like farmers or
wildlife and tell by the feel of the wind when it will rain or
frost.  We know when to protect ourselves from sunburn or sun
stroke.  We sense when, where, and what to plant.  Being mindful of
the sun's position at various times of the year on a given plot
helps us plan our garden work better.  We soon know where the
afternoon shade first appears and how fast it advances, that
evenings and mornings are the best time to garden and water, that
one makes hay -- and gardens -- while the sun shines.
       
   An Easter Blessing.  Certainly we do not want to exclude
rituals such as an Easter Water blessing or prayers for a
productive garden.  While remembering that ritualizing is not
gardening, we still should include those proponents of sacred
garden space that are more liturgically oriented.  They can
certainly be part of the support community that helps make the
garden a more spiritual place and gardeners more spiritual people.

    The Garden -- A Green Place.  The good garden is testimony to
the resilience of the Earth to bounce back and return to proper
productivity.  An ideal green garden becomes an attraction for
birds, friendly insects such as ladybugs, butterflies and frogs.
The natural cycles of birth, maturation and fruition can go
unhindered from invasive species and toxic chemical pesticides.
The air is not contaminated from the exhausts of tractors or by
using non-renewable resources.  Collected rainwater is used when
irrigation is needed -- not water from distant sources.  The land
is protected from alien weeds, pest and erosion during non-growing
months.  The presence of such a vital place refreshes our soul and
motivates us to carry on the work of extending good ecological
practice to a broader world.  It is the stepping off place for
rebuilding a broken world.

                   ----------------

           The Gardener's Plea for Wholeness

   All Good One, You establish balance and harmony on this Earth
and invite us to protect and enhance it.  Teach us to become
caretakers of your creation and to champion environmental ways.
Prompt us to spread the good news without losing heart, and to make
our homes the beginning of a more healthy Earth.  Show us how to
care for all things even plants -- to water sufficiently, to
fertilize when needed, to provide proper space, and to practice
biodiversity in garden and indoor plants.  Allow us to experience
the many cycles of nature and of life.  Inspire us to participate
enthusiastically in the Earth's regenerative process by turning
waste into resources for new life.  Finally, help us experience
your creative Presence in our midst.

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    May  --  Aesthetics and Floral/Vegetable Gardens

    Reflection:   May brings flowers, from May Day and the
garlands and floral May poles to the decorated cemeteries on
Memorial Day.  The month includes the Run for the Roses on Derby
Day, the bouquets sent on Mother's Day, and the crowning of
festival and prom queens amid floral arrangements.  May speaks to
our souls of freshness and beauty, before the heat of summer will
melt away the tender green of springtime's delight.  May is when
the sun rises earlier and sets later.  The extra daylight is
refreshing for we have much more to do.  This is planting season.

     Gardens and flowers seem to blend together in this month,  
when the surface is ablaze in color.  There's blooming comfrey and
peas, radishes and Chinese cabbage going to seed, and green
punctuated with purple hairy vetch cover crops.   The month of May
reaffirms the beauty of the garden which also has its plenty of
spinach, Swiss chard, lettuce, radishes, red-stemmed beet greens,
spreading cabbages, broccoli and kohlrabi and blooming chives.  It
is the season of unique tastes -- of uncontaminated, sun-ripened
strawberries and of rhubarb pie.  From nearby trees we can pick and
taste the sweet or sour cherries (provided we beat the birds to
them).  May includes the ox-eyed daisies in the fields, iris,
blooming blackberry, peonies, poppies, rocket larkspur, and a host
of other colorful and well scented flowers.  May is the time of
sweet scented blooming black locust, and Kentucky Coffee trees with
flowers that seem to cling like snow to the branches.  

                    ---------------------

    Floral Garden.  This year I am committed to having a highly
productive garden interspersed and accentuated by the beauty of
cosmos and begonias and marigolds.  Note that flowers selected for
domestic gardens need not be entirely of a native variety, only
naturalized or traditional flowers which will not be a menace if
allowed to escape.  Some species, such as daffodils or tiger
lilies, will continue flowering in a homestead area long after the
buildings have disappeared.  However, these will spread very slowly
and not be a major invasive threat.  They bloom at a given season
and die back allowing pastureland to yield normal vegetation.
Other flowers attract necessary pollinators which also are able to
collect nectar from vegetables and herbs.

    Flowers as Useful.  The addition of flowers to vegetable-
producing plots may have more than an aesthetic purpose.  Some
beautiful flowers or their leaves can be eaten in salad (nasturtium
or certain lilies).  Others are natural pest retardant agents
(marigold) and still others are harmful insect attractants (evening
primrose attracts the Japanese beetle).  Many colorful flowers
attract hummingbirds or butterflies which also add beauty  and a
sense of restfulness to the total garden community of plants and
animals.  Some use the summer garden as a place for storing and
invigorating indoor houseplants, and then return them indoors when
frost arrives.

   Flower Requirements.  Inserting flowers may require some care
in selecting varieties, in sowing and planting, in weeding, and in
collecting seed or transplanting bulbs.  A small additional space
may be required for such flowers and these can easily be
intermingled among a wide variety of vegetables and herbs.  The
flowering and scent of certain herbs, such as basil or the mints,
can also increase the total beauty of the garden environment.  In
rare cases, such as with daffodils, the very toxic bulb may be
mistaken for members of the onion family.  Do not grow these
flowers where there could be mistaken identity, and caution
gardeners to always check for the characteristic onion scent.

    Floral Bouquets.  If wildscape and floral/vegetable gardens
exist side-by-side, it is always difficult to answer requests for
cutting wildflowers.  Such bouquet gatherings may be possible or
they may distract from the total beauty of the landscape.  We are
generally less reluctant to cut cultivated flowers rather than
wildflowers for decorating homes, worship space and special events.
A general principle is never to harvest wildflowers in the wild
unless they are invasive or naturalized species (e.g., ox-eyed
daisies, Queen Anne's lace or wild chicory).  This is because the
wildflowers are often placed under stress by over-development,
invasive species, or the gatherers inability to distinguish
endangered sub-species from other types.

    Beauty for Its Own Sake.  Embellishing with flowers may be for
its own sake, because their color, shape and smell improve the
quality of our life.  We like the purple blooms of hairy vetch, for
this plant acts as a winter cover, gives nitrogen back to the soil,
and acts as summer living mulch.  But it is also a beautiful spring
blooming plant worth having around just for adornment.  Gardens can
go beyond the utilitarian purpose of yielding food, for gardens can
give pleasure to the eyes of the beholder.  The flowers' colors,
scents and shapes add to the ambiance of the garden, making it all
the more inviting for those tending and those looking in.  Gardens
beckon to designate this as a sacred place, and encourage us to
perfect it over time.  Flowers also dispose those unacquainted with
outdoor exercise to appreciate gardening. They mellow the practical
and the scientific to the art of flower design and growth.    

     Ornamentals and Lawns.  There's nothing wrong with having
plants for beauty's sake.  That is why we advocate edible
landscapes that include ornamentals like holly that can be used for
bird nesting and feeding areas and that may include wildscape with
its possible hundred types of flowers.  Much of the ornamental lawn
that covers suburban and urban America is not necessarily pretty,
consumes resources to manicure, and requires immense amount of
maintenance time.  Consider floral/vegetable gardens instead.

     An Example.  Besides their homestead flower plots, my peasant
Uncle Peter and Aunt Alberta always added a row of gladiolus to
their otherwise quite productive and practical vegetable garden.
They were simple farmers in the Kentucky hills using horses to
operate farm machinery.  However, they deliberately added beauty
down the middle of their half-acre garden, giving a sense of color
and life to what otherwise looked like just another farm field.  As
a youngster I couldn't understand the reason for all of these
flowers, and the added attention these two gardeners gave to them.
Now I do.  All I have to do is look about the countryside and see
so much attention to lawns and flowerbeds to understand the need to
combine garden and flowers.  The tender care of a floral/vegetable
garden has now entered into my own gardening experience.  

     The Garden as Art Form.  Art is found in galleries, museums
and places of distinction.  Through imagination and good work the
paintings and sculpture seem to come alive.  Similarly, a garden
with interspersed flowers is a living art piece, demanding the
skills of designer, gardener and artist all in one.  The landscape
is a canvas on which the aesthetically-minded paint by sowing seed
or planting and anticipating when the work will become colorful.
The ever-changing garden becomes like a stained glass window with
the sun playing off it at different times of the day.  The plant
selection, arrangement and vegetative growth are the oils and
medium of art, becoming part of good art through proper design and
anticipated time of blooming.  This garden art form attracts birds,
butterflies and other human beings.  A vast variation in expression
is part of the power of that attraction which is accentuated by
color, fragrances and touch.  The fruit, berries, vegetables, and
herbs are aromatic and tasteful and pleasant to behold and hold.
The garden stimulates all senses and the power of the hallowed
place enters into our whole being, stimulating the garden visitor
to turn our minds to the Creator.

                       -------------

                   The Gardener's Ode to Joy
   
     O Creating One, fill our eyes and hearts with the beauty that
flowers give when intertwined with growing produce.  Let the sheer
delight of edible and flowering plants uplift us high above the
everyday world, scarred by human-made ugliness and uniformity.
While we cannot escape that world, nor should we try, we still need
to rest in beauty for brief moments.  These times give us the
courage and the vision to see what the entire scarred world can
become.   Let our delight at this present beauty be wordless praise
to You and inspire us to raise hearts and minds to You in an
ever-swelling chorus of praise.  Touch and cultivate the gardens of
our hearts, filling them with beauty and grandeur, precious
moments' rest in glory's contemplation.  Let these moments be the
foreshadowing of eternal delight.  Joyfully, joyfully, we exult
You.

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    June -- Resource Conservation Measures
   
    Reflections:  June is the time of a verdant garden, when
things grow by leaps and bounds.  Bright red stalks of beets, mole
bean stalks and Swiss chard punctuate the greenery as do the yellow
blooms of zucchini, summer squash, and cucumbers, and the faint
blossoms on the many tomato vines.  From the neighboring berry
patches comes handfuls of wild black and red raspberries.  The
flowers of nearby wildscapes include white and yellow yarrow,
baby's breath, the first blooming of wild chicory that will give a
blue touch until autumn, and  majestic Queen Anne's lace.  The
countryside is ablaze in color and smothered in summer scents.  It
is the time of the June apple and mulberry, of the sight of the
delicate pink and white mimosa bloom, and the scent of new mown hay
and blooming honeysuckle.

    Springtime's freshness wears off in the heated glare of the
June sun, which is sometimes punctuated with the rumbling early
summer thunderstorms, that can quickly turn violent with wind,
hail, and lightning.  The June climatic change is bittersweet for
it brings the gnats and mosquitoes, but affords us opportunities to
pause from sweaty work and to cool our sunburned arms and neck.
The hot, drier weather bakes the soil and signals to us to conserve
the precious soil moisture.  It is time to mulch.  

                           ---------------

    Mulching Time.  It is the Pentecost season -- the beginning of
ordinary time.  We observe the advent of the long hot summer and
the mulching season, which is nature's best way of conserving
precious water as the hotter days increase evaporation.  We
carefully place straw under the spreading squash leaves and around
the growing tomato plants.  Granted other mulching agents are known
and used, but we prefer natural products such as straw which will
eventually compost into the beds as organic matter.  We look for
bare places as the green cover turns brown with the hot afternoon
June sun.  When we uncover the mulch we discover cool moist soil,
while nearby the mulch-less land is quite dry.  Mulch is our
moisture-conserving friend.

    Conservation Consciousness.  Wasting is wrong, but many of us
never consider the moral aspects of resource waste.  We will try to
halt waste to save money or because the waste itself is
inconvenient or unsightly.  But what about waste that happens as
part of our over packaged and throwaway culture?  We have unused
clothes because of the latest fashion.  We throw out food because
we do not like the inconvenience associated with making leftover
dishes.  We allow dwellings to waste electricity because no one
cares enough to turn off the lights.  On the other hand, domestic
gardening makes us mindful that wasting involves lost time and
human effort.  Through wholesome gardening "waste" becomes a
resource.  We turn so-called kitchen waste into compost and yard
wastes (grass clippings, tree trimmings and discarded weeds) into
valuable mulch.  With proper foresight the valuable living topsoil
in development projects could be saved during construction
operations and restored around many of the less densely constructed
houses.  

    Land Stewardship.  Good conservation methods in agriculture
(contour plowing, rotation of crops, erosion control, cover crops,
and wind breaks) have always been considered a way to teach
stewardship of natural resources.   We are patiently taught that it
takes a long time to make an inch of soil and a moment's negligence
to lose it.  What is learned through agricultural methods for
larger fields also applies to horticulture.  We need to be good
stewards of the Land.

    Time Stewardship.  Through gardening we learn to budget our
working hours, the areas of life with the highest human waste
potential.  Horticulture, a sub-division of agriculture, offers
opportunities to practice this type of time  stewardship.  First,
farmers and gardeners come to recognize that we are on this Earth
for a very short time and we must make the best of our limited
energy and precious time.  We have only windows of time in our own
lives to learn good gardening practice, to put this into effect, to
teach it to others, and to slow down as health and ebbing physical
strength require.  

    Energy Resource Savings.  One benefit of domestic gardening is
that it saves resources and thus complements the discussion of
April on eco-balance.  Some savings include:

    * Transportation and storage energy --  Food, like all bulky
everyday consumer products, should be produced as near home as
possible because of transportation costs and because we have better
control on the quality of local products. Good ecological design
for food production systems places emphasis on obtaining food
locally.  

    * Sharing excess produce -- The surplus produce from domestic
gardens that goes to neighbors and the needy also cuts energy cost
to transport comparable food supplies as well as accompanying
portions that are inherently wasted during commercial transactions.

    * Energy needed for larger gardening or lawn maintenance --
hand tools take far fewer resources than those powered by gasoline
or diesel, such as tractors or lawnmowers.  Thus, low intensity
gardening is actually a non-renewable resource savings.  Some of
the techniques listed below will enhance that saving.  

    * Spoiled materials that would have gone to landfills --
These garden wastes require no hauling costs for the domestic
gardener can compost directly in the backyard.

    Resource Conservation Techniques.  Besides mulching,
garden-saving conservation measures worth considering include
raised bed, double-dug, natural pest control, and crop
interplanting techniques.  All five of these techniques are
complementary because they lead to far higher yields of produce in
a smaller space.  Some gardeners may not have the facilities to use
the various techniques or have enough land to grow their gardens on
extensive fields with space to spare.  All good and well, but
excess land can breed a sense of wastefulness in gardening, just
like a spacious house that is mostly unused or an automobile that
is a gas guzzler.  If we have too much of a particular resource, we
should consider sharing it.  Remember that added maintenance and
security will cause us additional stress.  Should my garden be so
large?  Can I share produce with another?  Is it possible to get
someone else to participate in a community gardening venture?  

    The Garden, A Resource Conservation Zone.  The domestic garden
is not a wasteland, nor is waste the product of its operation.  As
our environmental and eco-spirituality grows we become aware that
our domestic gardens calls each of us to use resources well, for
they are valuable and limited.  Just as we were surprised to learn
that natural processes were not wasteful, we learn that our land
activities must also be conservation conscious.  We discover that
everything in nature is recycled.  This is found in vivid examples
of growing, dying, composting and regeneration in the garden.  We
have much to learn from the garden:  to strive to reduce waste to
zero; to reduce the plethora of discarded materials and containers;
to turn garden or vegetative wastes into resources through
composting and mulching; to integrate animals and their waste
products as composted manures into the system; and to strive to
integrate our spiritual life into the rhythms of the natural
recycling process which admits of no waste.

                  -------------------

          Gardener's Desire for Self Control

     Conservator of all Life, increase our awareness of the
precious resources entrusted to us.  Teach us to use all material
things to the degree they assist us to attain our end, and never to
overuse or waste resources that You pronounced as good.  Make us
stewards of these gifts, aware of how fleeting is our time and how
fragile are entrusted gifts.  Guide us to protect and conserve the
water that is so precious, both that which we use in our homes and
that used in our gardens.  Protect us from becoming a part of this
throwaway generation, and teach us to reuse cast-off items and to
be sensitive to sharing excess with those lacking in basic
resources.  Lead us through gardening to value this gift of land,
our time, the seasons, the recyclable materials around us, our own
reserves of energy, and the wisdom of other gardeners.  

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    July --  Quality of Life Enhancement

    Reflection:  July is the season of dog days when crickets and
locusts sing, black locust trees often start turning brown, and the
farm pond scum expands and changes to dark green.  The year's high
noon has arrived.  It is an intensely patriotic time of
Independence Day celebrations and fire crackers, of barbecue scents
and barking dogs, of family reunions and all-day picnics, of sun
block and crowded swimming pools, and of evening cruises in
convertibles and pickup trucks loaded with half clad young folks.

    July, the relaxed vacation time, allows us to pause and
reexamine the foods we eat, along with their nutritional content
and quality.  The spring greens and scallions have given way to
bush and pole beans, okra and the first tomatoes, more summer
squash, and cucumbers that seem to get oversized overnight.  From
the trees come green summer apples and purple and red plums, and
from the patches all around hang the ever-present blackberry and
its berry cousins.  All of these yield exquisite tastes so much
better than the commercial varieties picked green and ripened by
artificial means.  July is the time of tall bluebells and
milkweeds, of blooming ironweed and scarlet sage.  In this lazy
month all take to the shade, except the butterflies and
hummingbirds which seem to thrive in the blazing sun amid the
summer zinnias and cosmos.  

                    -------------------

   Food Quality Goal.  High summer is quality time, and we know
what that means with its scents and sight and tastes.  It is the
time to stop at mid-year and reflect at the tripod of good
gardening, i.e.,  amount, nutritional content and taste.  Through
the use of raised beds and other intensive techniques the
quality-minded gardener can obtain plentiful yields;  through
careful selection of crops good nutritional content can be
obtained; and through the further selection of specific cultivars
within these families of vegetables (along with proper harvesting,
preserving and cooking) one can preserve and create tastes that
please the palate.  

   Preservation.  To retain the quality of the garden produce is
a worthwhile goal.  Domestic produce can be fresh, plentiful,
uncontaminated, and varied.  Eventually, though, the crops will
pass through their prime and soon be gone.  Thus the
quality-conscious should give special attention to saving high
quality surplus produce by preservation techniques such as solar
drying, canning, pickling, freezing, and root cellar use.  Thus the
surplus can be enjoyed later in the less productive winter months.


   Commercial Aims.  Current mass produced vegetables involve
picking hybridized unripe produce, shipping for great distances in
refrigerated car, using artificial ripening agents, and selling at
a supermarket chain.  The nutrition of such commercial produce is
limited when it is harvested before ripening, because vitamins and
sugars have not had time to develop.  Commercial producers desire
perfect appearing products, that is, free from blemishes, no matter
how much chemical pesticide is present or how poor the nutritional
content.  Chemical-free commercial produce is not easily found and
is higher priced.  An apple's worm may be unappetizing but it
indicates the absence of pesticides.  One of my otherwise finicky
aunts accepted a few worms on produce and called them signs of
things chemically free and, if accidentally cooked, a source of
protein.

    Quality of Life.   Today, many seek a higher quality simple
life that includes smaller vehicles and places to live, fewer
clothes, more time with family (down-sizing job expectations), more
care in growing and purchasing locally-grown organic foods
(nutritional quality), and more time given to the arts and music
(quality leisure time).   Our center has emphasized
obtaining bulk products -- food, water, building materials and
energy supplies -- from sources close at hand where quality can be
controlled as well as transportation costs reduced.  The growing
popularity of "Farmer's Markets" means consumers are returning to
a search for quality, even if it costs more.

    Quality Diet.  Higher quality, larger quantity and broader
variety of grains, fruits, vegetables, and herbs allow for a more
balanced and wholesome diet that uses less of the Earth's
resources.  This quality diet means less use of resource intensive
domestic animal products and encourages more vegetarian diets.
Unit-for-unit, the meat, milk and egg producing domestic animal is
a consuming agent, requiring considerable feed to stay alive,
reproduce and furnish animal products for human consumption.  Some
20 units of feed are required for one unit of final animal product
that is ultimately consumed.  Grain-fed beef is the highest end of
this intensity scale with pork middling and poultry and fish at the
lower end of the scale.  Animal feed (corn, other grains, hay,
soybean byproducts, and pastures) require a major portion of this
nation's arable land.  

   Quality Arguments.  Meat producers say that while meat and
other animal products are more resource-intensive than vegetables,
fruit, nuts, and berries, meat is still relatively low priced,
range feeding reduces the need for grain production, and the food
is highly nutritious.  As the son of a cattle grower I understand
the argument that animal products are complete and nutritious
foods.  However, vegetarians offer the strong counter-argument
that, with care, they can achieve balanced diets.  During the past
century-and-a-half, conversion of American forest and grasslands
from wilderness to range land has had many detrimental effects,
including the destruction of understory (native plants growing
below the forest canopy) plants, erosion, and introduction of
invasive species to many of our public lands leased out to cattle
growers.  A number of environmentally conscious people reduce their
consumption of animal products because of the environmental impacts
of livestock production.

    The Garden -- Gateway to Mystery.  Gardens are in part the
work of human beings, but manifest also the cooperative handiwork
of Creator and diligent creature, garden-maker.  The first Eden was
God's sole handiwork reserved for human use.  Through stumbling and
falling and subsequent toiling and redemption we learn that we do
more than live in a prepared garden.  We help remake the Second
Eden, though we always must be reminded that we are only workers
and not the Master Builder.   However, this invitation to help is
part of a great mystery, that we who have stumbled can rise and
through redemption become something greater.  We are called to
enhance, improve and rebuild a shattered world and thus help return
Eden to its rightful place.  We don't do this alone and that is
part of the mysterious gift of becoming renewers and participants
in a planetary gardening process -- not mere bystanders.  

     Value of the Untended.  Even with this privilege to cultivate
and develop the landscape, we should not lose sight of the quality
of Wilderness, -- God's handiwork from the beginning.  While
wilderness is a counterpoint to cultivated garden plots, it must be
preserved and allowed to flourish.  Even in wilderness preservation
human beings are more than observers; we are protectors and
preservers of wilderness areas which are integral parts of the
emerging New Eden.  The domestic garden is remade, not by
converting wilderness into garden, but by taking damaged land and
turning it into quality ecological models of what cultivated areas
should be.  Let us also give some time to change back the damaged
lands into wilderness, wildscape and reconstituted wetlands.

                      --------------

              The Gardener's Chaste Desires

     Oh Perfect One, You call me to move along the road to greater
love.  I overlook the ordinary things of life and reach out to the
unattainable.  Help me to value the quality of things I can at
least attain in part.  Allow me the desire to grow in active
contemplation, to speak more perfectly with You and with others,
and to value the quality of decent human living.  In the summertime
of this year grant me a renewed resolution to reach beyond the
routine and seek a higher quality of life that comes through clean
living and growing respect for the needs of other persons.  Protect
me from being misled by material allurements and mere appearances
and pretensions.  Help me prize a higher quality of life.  May my
improving domestic garden mirror the garden of my soul, where a
purified heart is willing to share the good things of life.

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     August --  Grassroots Training

     Reflection:  For parts of the country August is back-to
school time when thoughts move from vacation holidays and travel to
formal education.  It is the time of high summer, a transfiguring
of the landscape and the first foreshadowing of rapidly approaching
autumn.   The lazy days of July give way to mists rising in the
morning and days that are getting noticeably shorter.  Nature is
giving us clues that not all remain the same: birds start to flock
in larger numbers, cobwebs seem to multiply, the morning mists
envelop the countryside, goldenrod appears in rocky places and
roadside banks, bush phlox punctuates the forest understory.  

    August is the prime growing season when the landscape
(provided rain is plentiful) is verdant and gardens yield their
peak load harvests -- watermelon, peaches, apricots, cantaloupes,
grapes, fresh green corn, cascades of ripe tomatoes, butterbeans,
and still more green, yellow and tan squash.   We pickle the
smaller cucumbers, make tomato juice, preserve the peaches, fill up
the deep freeze with squash, solar dry the first pickings of
apples, and have blueberries, peaches and grapes to spare to make
tasty cobblers.  It is the season of the delicious mayapple and the
teasel, of the sweet and spotted joe-pye-weed and red clover
blooms, of ripe clusters of pokeweed and edible papaws.

                        ---------------

     Gardening as Learning Experience.  Gardening can change
people -- both master gardeners and beginners.  The act of
gardening resembles gracefully dying people, who offer observers
teaching opportunities of fidelity, patience and self-control.
Over time gardeners gain respect for nature by enduring the
vicissitudes of the elements, accepting mini-disasters, weighing a
chance to plant another crop, being "up on top" of the weeds, and
minimizing crop damage with an even temper and alternative
interplanted crops.  Beginners gradually enter into the mental ways
and aspirations of the master gardener and can visualize the beds
with or without certain plants.  With the Master the beginner can
wince when the hail falls, pray that the wind will cease, and hope
that the freeze won't come too early.  Together, the experienced
and the one experiencing can rejoice in a satisfactory harvest.

    The Demonstrative Power of Gardening.  Gardening can become a
case study in learning and teaching.  Mistaken ideas that food
originates in supermarkets and milk comes from factories gives way
to the reality of food production in a garden.  Novice gardeners
who were  formerly distant from the Earth become personally
acquainted with it, often for the first time.  When master
gardeners observe the power of demonstration which they have
initiated by their own actions, they are changed also.  During the
major part of the three decades of my public interest work I
thought talks, reports and television shows made the difference.
In recent years it has become apparent that none of that parade of
activities equals the power of showing someone a personally tended
garden.  Rest confident that experience will take hold.

    Reflection on Our Co-Creative Roles.  If time, space and other
factors are right, a new environment is created in the garden that
is a grassroots beginning -- a bottoms-up operation nurtured by the
Earth itself through the ongoing creative power of God working in
the world.  Neophytes perceive that they are not mere observers but
participants in the mystery of garden growth.  Participants need to
have a true sense of awe.  The experienced should never belittle
that experience, but augment it by confessing that gardening for a
lifetime will not change the wonder of maturing plant life.

    Hands-On Experience.  Gardening can be performed at a
multitude of levels.  Near Amsterdam in the Netherlands I observed
an entire school class engaged in planting seedlings in a school
plot.  Some learn cooperative gardening projects through Scouts or
civic or religious associations.  All individuals need to
personally participate.  Encourage the ones who are bashful to take
part in this hands-on experience and do not allow forward members
of the class to perform the experiential work.  Ideally all
learners have their own individual plots, which are their personal
responsibility for planting and harvesting.

    No Quick Fix.  Accountability for seeing the project through
to harvest is a major gardening lesson for the beginners.  Some
want quick fixes in the world around us.  But garden education is
a slow and painstaking process, and learning to plant and tend to
maturity and then harvest takes patience.  Granted, it can also be
enjoyable and is.  But we need to watch and wait, to pull weeds and
to see that the right amount of moisture is present.  We need to
know when to harvest, to weigh results and insert amounts into
record books.  August is the mini-planting season for fall crops.
We need an accountability to the garden space, to keep things
growing throughout the year, especially in late summer.

   Simultaneously Harvesting and Planting.  August is unique.  It
is heavy in harvesting the spring-planted crops and it is time for
planting cover crops and fall vegetables.  Early fall plantings
could be hurt by dry weather and thus require the tender loving
care that comes from watering dry land. But this dual work makes
gardening more productive -- and fun.  Work and play all wrapped
into one, which experienced gardeners don't fully express.

   These experts are often insensitive to beginners who are
unfamiliar with how to prepare soil, recognize plants from weeds,
and how to harvest without damaging the still producing plants.
Many hardly know that peas are in pods or cucumbers grow on vines.
Experienced gardeners are challenged to confront the inexperienced
bias that gardening could be left to rustics, farmhands, and
servants.  A Chicago youth minister called wanting to bring eighth
graders to teach Appalachians to garden.  Voila, the bias!  I asked
whether the kids had gardening experience and the organizer said
they didn't, but could learn quickly.  I assured him that so could
most Appalachians.

    Recording Experiences.  We think we have plenty of time to
record experiences for the learner.  While in India I asked an
88-year-old missionary if he had recorded his many gardening
stories with which he would regale his local listeners.  He said
"no, there's plenty of time."  He died shortly after -- unrecorded.
   
     Gardening experience takes time to acquire and is lost when
the gardener goes to meet the Great Gardener.  We're not permanent
fixtures who garden on Earth forever.  Recording by experienced
gardeners is salutary, for the general store of horticultural
knowledge should embrace an evolving knowledge that includes our
many mistakes.  Oral and video histories of gardeners will be
highly prized, and so we have deposited dozens of them at
the University of Kentucky Library.  Today segregated elders find
it more difficult to hand their garden gems on to younger listeners
through oral tradition, especially in a throwaway culture.

    The Garden as a Ripple Effect.  Passing the experience of
gardening from the expert to the inexperienced is an ongoing
process.  The garden that is well tended becomes a model for what
others can become.  A New Eden is an emerging phenomenon which is
being born.  "Wasted" or non-productive land becoming productive
excites us.  We like what is occurring and want to hasten the
process.  The place of growing productivity may be a yard,
neighborhood, town, county, state, region, country, our Earth.  If
we accept responsibility for our local environment, we can more
readily accept accountability for progressively broader
environmental areas.  The improvements must begin at a specific
locus, a grassroots, a place from which organic growth can occur.
Many beginnings can occur at the same time, a phenomenon that has
been observed often in human history.  Scientists tell us that
enzymatic points are where catalysts stimulate and hasten the
growth process.  Each energized point (garden plot) is influenced
by the other -- a ripple effect of change.  
                    ---------------
                 The Gardener's Creed

      Most Provident One, You give us the strength to take care of
what is entrusted to us.  You teach us to be faithful to flowers
and vegetables alike and to share our experience with those around
us.  You prompt us to till and fertilize a larger community of
persons.  Through our faithful attentiveness we attract those who
desperately seek role models.  Through our faithfulness we
encourage faithfulness; through our joy we make joy contagious;
through our precious moments we come to value our limited time
together.  Finally, we believe that You alone can teach us to count
how few days we have and so gain wisdom of heart (Psalm 90: 12).  
         

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   September -- Family/Neighbor Bonding            

   Reflection:  September starts with Labor Day when goldenrod are
in full bloom and the crops are being gathered.  It's harvest time
on farms, when entire families helps in an intergenerational
enterprise.  We hasten in anticipation of autumn chill and a
possible early frost.  The heavier mists now hang over the valleys
reminding us each morning that days are warm, but nights are cooler
than the temperature of rivers, lakes and ponds.  Work, even garden
work, includes beating the frost and a mutual sacrifice.

   The birds flock in the evening and nature seems to anticipate
what is in store.  We pick elderberries for pie, press cider, deep
freeze the grapes and continue to use the solar food dryer for
beans and apples.  We notice that the late tomatoes have a
different taste this month.  In the more even temperature of the
month the peppers seem to fill the stalks miraculously with each
passing day and hang heavy in yellows and greens and reds and
purples.  Butternut and winter squash are ready to store; we
prepare the greenhouse for the first transfers as frost approaches.
We trample the late summer woods nearby and find the acorns now
falling from the oak trees.  We taste the most exquisite of all
fruit in the wild, the wild plum.  And we hear the reports of
hunters -- fathers and sons and daughters bonding by bringing home
a mess of squirrel.  We see deer and rabbit and raccoon as well and
hear the gobbling of the wild turkeys.  Yes, this is September.

                        -------------------

     Social Enterprise.  Gardening can definitely be a social
enterprise engaging the natural community of plants, animals and
people of all ages.  This intergenerational collection of family
and neighbors includes the expertise of elders, enthusiasm of
youth, energy of the able-bodied, and the attentiveness of learners
and part-time observers.  Elders know what and when to plant and
harvest;  youth take pride in their own budding gardening skills
and ability to store memories for years to come.  They like the
opportunity to experiment and are relieved to know the elders still
have things to learn as well.  However, even enthusiastic youth may
tire easily of garden operations while the able-bodied have the
stamina to continue gardening.  All are bonded in sharing together
the sheer delight and joy of helping a garden grow, even when
risking some plant harm by the inexperienced.  

    Social Gardener Tips.  The social aspects of gardening need
not consume the entire gardening time.  Reserve special times and
special occasions for social (cooperative) gardening.  Show the
little ones where to stand, walk, step or pick.  Informality does
not make good gardening practice, just as rigid formality can be
oppressive.  Establishing a middle ground is very important.  Each
should recognize that people acquire gardening skills at different
rates.  Specific tips to enhance participation by people at
different skill levels include:

    Involve the Family --  The saying that the family that "prays
together, stays together" involves the entire unit, not just a few.
If young and old can pray in their own way simultaneously, why
can't they all garden together?  A gardening exercise can be a
happy occasion when all who desire can be present (even when some
choose not to take advantage of full participation).  Be welcoming,
make rules clear and simple for protection of plants, assist the
old, and reign in toddlers for the garden's sake.

    Include the Neighbors -- Quite often gardeners exclude
neighbors through the plea of wanting privacy in gardening.
However, social gardening, as explained here, is a public act and
one that may intrigue nearby inhabitants.  Create an occasional
gardening event to include others.  The ripple effect of gardening
influence extends out to wider concentric circles and certainly can
easily embrace neighbors who have a hidden interest in what is
going on.  Make them feel at ease in coming, seeing, and even
helping in the harvest.
   
    Pick Your Own --  Sometimes you have just too much of a good
thing and that includes garden produce.  "Come and pick your own"
is one solution.  First invite local neighbors and then extend to
others.  When you are keeping a tab on the amounts of materials
produced, it is important to have gatherers keep tabs on the
amounts they harvest.  In essence, this is the extent of my garden
rules.  Come and take a specific vegetable if you like, but make
sure to record and tell me to the quarter pound how much you took.
That is because our gardens are monitored and the results shared
with the wider Commonwealth of Kentucky.

    Encourage Others to Garden --  Neighbors can learn to garden
by osmosis and become co-partners in expertise and co-sharers in
produce.  In fact, this may be a higher form of social or joint
community gardening because of the replication effects and the
expanding of expertise through hands-on operations.  Neighbors are
invited to do more than observe;  while maybe reluctant, they need
to experience the risk involved in committing themselves to
gardening.  Encourage them to garden their piece of land, starting
simply and working up to more sophisticated forms of gardening.

    Reconsider Privacy Barriers --  I am not against certain
domestic privacy barriers (especially vegetative and wooden ones)
which delineate a place where people can cook outdoors or just
relax.  People need private getaways from a busy world.  While a
garden may be a retreat to partial rest, it is also public space
different from interior bedroom or outside breakfast nook.  A wire
fence may be sufficient to allow neighbors to peer in and observe,
though the invitation may not be so all embracing as to include
unwanted wildlife.  The invitees do not have a license to wreck,
and you should exclude threatening human or wildlife.

    A Garden Celebration.  A block party can be made into a
social event that includes the reticent neighbors who come and
enjoy the fruits of gardening.  The late-summer evening or autumn
celebration when the harvest is prime could provide the setting,
and part of the food could be the produce from the garden (e.g.,
mint tea, stir-fry, vegetable soup, salads, etc.).  A community
gathering in the cool of an autumn evening is most fitting.   This
can be an opportunity to communicate and the conversation will
undoubtedly come back to particular foods from produce or hints of
what to do next year, for half of gardening is anticipation of what
is to come.

     Garden as Part of Home.  Care and love transforms a house
into a home.  The emerging Eden is the ecos, par excellence.  It is
becoming a home to plants, animals and human beings as well.  Here
is a sense of belonging, of security, of direction and focus.  This
does not mean that the gates to our domestic gardens are thrown
open for all to trespass.  That is hardly a way to establish a
home.  Eden, as home, means that respectful coexisting can occur
with friendly plants and animals and that the good will of a garden
operation can be communicated to an ever broadening network of
gardening enterprises.  We love wild animals in the wild but will
not open our doors to a bear or cougar.  The emerging Eden is
embracing the cultivated gardens of the world as well as preserved
wilderness areas and wildlife refuges.  There is enough space for
all, though not exactly the same space.  However, lovers of
wildlife know that the garden, as home, attracts certain friendly
wildlife (e.g., songbirds, worms, insects, and butterflies).    

                  ----------------------
 
               The Gardener's Prayer for Kindness
 
  Oh, gentle Bonder of the Universe, bring our family closer
together and cement our growing togetherness with your kindly love.
Where families are dispersed give others to take their place so
that they can be bonded together with us.  This bonding is itself
a gift, though through kindness we can help cement it all the more.
We help create our gardening space and we may hold too tightly to
it like old people with a death grip on their precious worldly
wares.  We need to let go.  You allow us to steward your land for
a short time.  Teach us when to loosen and when to make bonds.
Show us that by letting go others can become bonded more closely
without us.  Allow us to be generous, not miserly, open, not
disturbed about others presence, free with gifts given so that they
can be freely passed on in an atmosphere of loving kindness.  Help
us to invite as You have invited us into your family.

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    October -- Broadening Community Relations

    Reflection:  The leaves are turning a hundred hues and we know
that the ordinary growing season is coming to an end.  Indian
summer days make us wish they would stay forever.  It is warm but
mosquito-less, a perfect season.  Trees blaze at least for a few
days or weeks with autumn reds, rust, and gold.  As the month
progresses, those warning flags of frost bring us back to reality.
The first frost warning sends us scurrying for bags and covers for
the delicate things, such as peppers and the few late beans.  We
strive to keep the marigolds and impatiens alive and blooming as
much as we can, but are counting more on the mums to fill the
flowering gaps of October.  We move frost-sensitive plants to the
greenhouse or share them with neighbors.

     The garden and landscape take on a special character in this
month.  We gather in the crooked squash and pumpkins.  It is the
final call for the yellow pear tomatoes and the Tommy Toes.  The
fall garden planted in mid- and late-August is now beginning to
produce.  The prime focus is the purple turnip and the greens,
along with mustard and kale, that give greenery to the late garden.
It is cover crop