Put your hands in the soil every day.
This was my grandmothers advice. She was discussing with me how I should behave when I became a wife. I was being brought up to be a good wife. There was no discussion from the women in my family, about following my heart or whether I had some wonderful talent or even really having a job, I could start as a nurse or teacher if I must, but most of the discussion from my mother and grandmother was on how to run a house, how to cook, how to raise my children and how to be a good wife. And this was in the 1970’s.
However a lot of my grandmother’s advice does hold true. All my life I have put my hands in the soil and this has kept me grounded, literally as well as figuratively. It works.
Yesterday we discovered that a young family in a small town close to here, were all dead. Two adults and three children. All killed by the mother, she shot her partner, her three small children and then shot herself. I know you do not want to read this. I know my language is harsh. I am too terse maybe. Most of us do not even want to think about it. But Life is harsh. A lonely life in a small town, with no friends or family,( they had recently moved there) must be dreadfully hard. The town is about twenty minutes from here and I drove through it once. It is small and grey. The streets are empty. The curtains are closed. The children are bused out to schools elsewhere.
I did not know this woman or her family. But I wonder: if she had been putting her garden to bed for the winter, and watching the weather. If she had been deadheading and bringing in pots. If she had been sorting next years squash seeds and checking to see if they were dry enough for the children to bag and label. If she had a larder full of preserves. If she had to check her pumpkins for soft spots. And sort the good potatoes out. Would she have picked up a gun, loaded it and shot her own children. Even if she had been struggling with a mental illness and I can only assume she must have been. And I know how dreadful that struggle is. I do know. Would she have gone this far? Maybe. All I know is that your hands in the soil is the best way to mitigate that merciless loneliness. This I know too.
Phase two of the Farmy has been moved up. We need to bring the children and their families onto the Farmy. As well as cooking, we need to help the young people feed their families. We must try to find a way to break the isolation.
So, now that we are up and running, we want to create an environment for local families to come and work on the Farmy. Grow their own food, garden, raise their own beef and lamb or pork. Pat daisy. Play with the cats, and be chased about by Mia. Muck out the barn, mow, garden, prune, pick, cook. Just a few families, we will stay small. But imagine helping young families fill their freezers and jars with food that they have grown themselves. Teaching the kids to cook, preserve and run wild down the back. Giving the Mum’s a break on the verandah. But in a normal neighbourly way. An old fashioned way.
I read another beautifully crafted story this morning here and it tied in so completely with what I am so clumsily trying to say. I want to encourage other people on other properties to help people grow gardens. I want to encourage anyone with a backyard or a sunny deck or a windowsill to grow. Teach a kid to cook. Teach a kid to grow. Teach a kid to eat well. Teach a kid to eat well and grow while sitting in a tree.
So firstly, we need to help people get in contact with other like minded people, for example: bloggers who think, bloggers who eat good food, bloggers who grow good food, bloggers who take great shots of good food, Oh My that is YOU!
I have opened a FaceBook page. I need writers, photographers, cooks, eaters, consumers, shoppers, gobblers, happy people, knitters, readers, gigglers, gardeners, ponderers, poets, sad people, farmers, drinkers (oh that’s me) I need advisers. I want to repost all the good stuff. I want you to lean over my fence and share the seeds. I want us to be able to find each other. I want us to plant gardens in the spring.
Did you know that in New Zealand they are trying to pass a law so that people cannot grow, share or trade home grown food, i.e. cabbages, broccolli, corn, beans, lettuce, spinach, seeds, seedlings, even water, WATER!? what about a fish, or a roast, a cup of sugar, a pint of milk, the list goes on. It is true! They are trying to outlaw growing and sharing food. In fact they plan to have Food Safety Officers to enforce this. This is madness. Grow a garden! Start digging New Zealand! We will dig with you!
Because, if someone had leant over the fence and said to the woman in the little town not far from here, who they are burying this week, and whose name I do not know. If someone had leant over the fence and said, ‘Here are some tomato seeds, you can sow them next month, in the window, send over the kids I will show them how.’ Maybe, just maybe that would have given her breath enough to go on for another day or the breath to ask for help.
If this terribly sad woman had known that to survive she could put her hands in the soil every day. Even in a tiny pot of parsley on her windowsill. Maybe, just maybe things would have been different. And there would not be five funerals this week.
So, if you want to join my tiny revolution, to help everyone plant a vege garden and share the food and share the knowledge and SHARE THE FOOD!!. Test my Facebook link and see if I have set it up right. Press like and share the like. And lets support each other and find each other and get together and grow. It is a tiny revolution.
I think we can do this. I think we can. I really think we can. Do I sound like ‘ The Little Train that Could’? Can we change the world one garden at a time? Is it against the law to plant vegetables on the median strip!?
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
103 responses to “Is it against the law to plant vegetables on the median strip?”
This is poignant and sad and touching and honest and heartfelt and every other adjective I could ever find in the dictionary to label this post. We need more of you in the world to speak such truth. My heart hurts for this family. My heart rejoice in your care. You are a peach, dear, C. Let the revolution begin.
I know you don’t live in the country anymore, but you know the country, and i am sure you are already helping the young people to plan their spring gardens! this is our little revolution.. maybe I should call it the good wife revolution .. but I have never been a terribly GOOD wife.. slightly wild maybe.. c
‘Scuse me for being a buttinsky, but as I understand it, C, being slightly wild–your brand, anyway–is the very definition of a Good Wife! If it means being family to the whole community as you’re advocating here, anyway . . . .
I feel for the poor woman who killed her family – that’s real desperation and sadly I think there might have been more wrong than the soil could cure.
The New Zealand law proposal is equally sad, but there’s something good in what you wrote – the heart of life and family is in the soil and round the table 😉
I know darling, i know you are probably right, but if she had always been OF the soil and the table and always gardened.. this is what i mean.. c
So sad about that family..there were probably more things afoot there than we could ever begin to imagine that only divine intervention could’ve helped. Does it count if the soil is just in pots on the deck? 🙂 Poignant post here, Miss C. t
Pots on the deck are exactly right! in fact pots on the deck grow the best lettuce! c
So sad to hear about the family tragedy, I could never imagine something like this happening in a peaceful town 😦
It makes us think. and look around doesn’t it! c
Sure does! what a crazy world 😦
So wonderful. I worked on a community garden for a little while this summer – unfortunately, the neighborhood saw the growth as not being tidy enough, and didn’t understand that they couldn’t grow vegetables there too well because the soil was so bad. *shakes head* My mom taught me how to garden, and darn it, when I get the chance, I’m going to garden!
good girl, do you have a space to garden out there.. and tidy!? are they crazy.. no decent vege garden is tidy!!
Have you had a look at the Landshare project and others like it that are going on in the UK? I agree that being out of doors every day in some capacity or other, growing food, tending plants and animals are all good for the soul and I am sure your instincts that working with this troubled family in this most practical and connecting sort of way would have been a saving grace. What a sad thing to read about. 😦 I know a fair few people who have allotments and who either share them with their friends too. City dwellers get quite creative about their growing spaces, I am always gladdened when I see tubs of strawberries and tomato canes on people’s balconies. I took some photos this summer which I never quite got round to posting of people growing veggies in unlikely spot in the city. Maybe I will collect a few more next year to share. Keep up the great work, you are a good and kind person 🙂
IWe should do a collection of shots of vege gardens in unusual places. That is a great idea.! i shall check out the Landshare project.. thank you c
Very powerful entry here. I live in a city where it can be hard to get in touch with the farm aside form the farmer’s market and occasional summer field trips. I love your message and long for a day when I can have my own garden.
until you find your garden keep those herbs on the window sill! they work too.. c
I’m an Aussie girl lucky enough to be living the growing dream. I have a large vegie patch ( more than one actually ) and cant imagine ever being without somewhere to get my hands dirty with my family by my side. My garden is my refuge from the pressures of everyday living and is there anytime I need it…and trust me when I say I know how lucky I am to have it.
One can only imagine the pain behind such an act as you describe here – devastating.
I too wish more people could come to understand the sheer joy of growing and picking their own produce and somehow contributing to a healthier life – and not just in the physical sense.
Hi Sue and welcome! We can help more people love the garden. I am sure you are already and living in Australia, if you can get the water, you have a lovely climate for gardens and growing all year round. Thank you so much for commenting.. c
Terribly sad, and what you said about neighbors being neighborly…so true. And your writing, oh your writing! I enjoy it so much, even when you are talking about something heart wrenching.
When I was in high school I sat next to a girl in one of my classes every day one year. At one point, I could tell something was bothering her and that she was very, very, sad. Unfortunately, I was afraid to take the chance to say something. She was a Senior, I was a Freshman and I didn’t know her personally at all…you really didn’t do things like that. Within a month or so, she was dead. Locked herself in her running car in her mother’s closed garage because she felt so desperate about life. I think about her often and about how many other people who actually knew her must have noticed the change in her, MUST have, but also didn’t say anything. I’ve learned my lesson, the hard way. I don’t have any problem now leaning over the fence and offering a kind smile and some relief to someone who needs it.
Cecilia, I think you really could change the world one garden at at time. 🙂
~April
How sad that you lost the girl at school. It is so final isn’t it. I do know. And because you were broadsided by such a terrible act, you have been able to lend a hand and a smile. Now we will plant gardens with that smile of yours.. and get back to basics. c!
How incredibly sad! As you said, isolation was probably the key to this. I think it probably is illegal to plant vegetables on the median strip, but it shouldn’t be. New Zealand needs a good kick up the bum for this idiotic new law!!!! It is legislation gone mad.
I don’t use Facebook, but I am with you all the way in encouraging people to grow their own food or help someone else to.
Good luck with your new project.
Facebook is only one way that we will begin to spread the word. The europeans are great at growing gardens, vineyards, and lemons and orchards in the tiniest of corners, you and your camera have probably learned some lessons you could share with us.
Love this, sharing, and signing up! ~ Lynda
If we all work together and help out we migh be able to make a change.. somewhere.. but how do i get the word out there? Are there other ways of developing the grow a garden idea? c
What a heartfelt and impassioned post. I hadn’t about that attempted law change in NZ. Here the farmer’s markets and roadside stalls are thriving, and all I’ve heard about is a few beurocratic tries at stopping homemade jams etc being sold on cake stalls. There’s no way such a law would succeed here. We are far too accustomed to trading and bartering.
You are so right: hands in the soil keep us in a healthy relationship with the earth and ourselves. What you are doing is marvellous. Yea!
Wherever we can poke in a herb or kale or anything, city people have the biggest job, finding an empty plot or corner, or crack that we can turn into a garden.. I look forward to seeing what you can do in the Big Smoke. One person. One more garden. Our mini revolution.. c
Hope you don’t mind me butting in here, but when I lived in the city I had proper garden out in the back yard, and I loved to pop in lettuces, eggplant, kale, herbs, and more into my front gardens. It always surprised my neighbors, but I thought them lovely! 😉
Butt in any time you like! Now this is a very good idea, Front Gardens! I thought of this as a sweet protest idea in New Zealand and there you were doing it anyway! Pop any ideas on the facebook page too so that we reach more people! This is a goodie! c
I heard on the radio about that happening. So sad and disturbing.
When I saw your title I thought you might have the same ideas as me. I some times think while driving…what about all that land around the interchanges? Why not let people plant in those areas. Maybe make some community gardens. Put it to use instead of just mowing it ever so often.
I agree helping others to grow their own produce where ever and however they can, will help themselves and give accomplishment. That can even help mentally, not to mention socially and physically.
We have become so accustomed to staying within our own property lines, building fences to keep others out and relying on our selves. We need to reach across those fences, even break them down. Talk to those around us and become a community again. Neighbor helping neighbor. Not just waving from our cars as we go in and out the driveway.
I think you need a bigger soapbox because a lot of us will probably want up there with you! 🙂
Well harold there is already room on my soapbox for many more. And there surely is work for you. This is what the Facebook page will be for, so make sure you get your tag in there so that we can get together and talk about the spring! It will be a busy one! c
What a heartbreaking story. What desperation she must have felt. I pray that they all be received in the wherever with Love.
Celi, you sweet, pro-active, human hummingbird! What an incredible idea. Talk about drops. Thanks for the link.
I love your idea, your approach and your enthusiasm. Not only are you responding to an artist naturalist who will be over the moon to hear this and to your granny, but you are also pulling purpose out of a tragedy. Or putting it in, I’m not sure which.
Guess I have no excuse for putting off picking up some boards to build boxes for holding soil. See? It’s been a seed and you just watered it with your drop.
Thank you and Thank Robert for enabling you to kick me into second gear. We are going to help plant gardens. I am going to help my readers to help one other person to plant a garden, or a window box, or a lettuce in a pot. And come spring we are going into high gear!! I am sure that over in Hawaii there is room for another garden!! c
[…] Celi at https://thekitchensgarden.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/is-it-against-the-law-to-plant-vegetables-on-the-m… has been inspired by Robert Bateman’s presentation. Check out her drop of water!) […]