The anti-war poet and soldier Siegfried Sassoon reports that toward the end of World War I, Winston Churchill told him that war is the normal occupation of man.
Rebecca Solnit - Revolutionary Plots
I'm not sure how many are familiar with Rebecca Solnit's work but she is a must read when it comes to the intersection of environment and politics.
Can it be the antithesis of war, or a cure for social ills, or an act of healing the divisions of the world? When you tend your tomatoes, are you producing more than tomatoes? How much more? Is peace a crop, or justice?
This lady paints a picture like no other look down there for just a few snippets.
We are in an era when gardens are front and center for hopes and dreams of a better world or just a better neighborhood, or the fertile space where the two become one.
So the anarchist kids had an integrated vision, and then thanks to Antonio, they had a next step. His mother’s house is right on the border of Alemany Farm, so it was an obvious site—at least to him—to experiment.
As we desultorily ate some superb strawberries planted here and there on the slope—grids are not one of Alemany Farm’s strong suits—Antonio told me about their complex relationship with the housing project’s denizens, who inhabit a city-run set of bunkerlike buildings. The mission statement of Alemany Farm describes it as “a project of the Alemany Resident Management Corporation, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving conditions in the Alemany Community, a 165-unit public housing development beset by high unemployment and recurring violence.
This is more than a production project; it’s a reconnection project, which is why it is also an urban one—if we should all be connected to food production, food production should happen everywhere, urban and rural and every topsoil-laden crevice and traffic island in between.
This entire Orion article is amazing it shows that all is not lost and I would hope that all reading this would take to heart what those involved in this project are accomplishing and spread the concept far and wide.
Comments
I really enjoyed reading that.
It does provide some hope.
For the first time ever, I planted a garden.
I should have listened when the instructions said to "plant 24 inches apart." My tomatoes are jungle like now ;) But they're really very good.
A nearby town had an area where houses were abandoned and eventually knocked down.
I don't know whose idea it was, but the town cleaned up the area and then created blocks of area, with walkways, and anyone in the town was welcome to come and plant fruits and vegetables. And they did.
The town provided some type of irrigation system, too. It's amazing what's growing there. You name it, someone planted it and it's growing.
When people are tending to their garden area and they notice a nearby garden area has been neglected, they chip in and weed it, and if the fruits or vegetables are getting too ripe, then they help themselves, knowing that the responsible person for that garden area hasn't been able to tend to it.
Exactly
the great thing is that people get involved. No matter the veg once they realize it is a community thing people actually talk. I know my neighbors are allowed in my garden anytime and it has made for each of us being better neighbors. They water when I can't and I collect when they can't, we all share. Heh it's real instead of fake.
That's wonderful. Maybe Ian's right, but I don't agree
that gardens are retreats. Maybe taking caring of them certainly will bring some inner peace and accomplishment, but not a retreat per se.
Even if I have my own garden, I don't retreat there, I tell several people about it, friends, family, strangers. I've met the nicest people at a local nursery.
I share information with others, then one things leads to another and it is most definitely social.
The Beauty Platform:
Peace, Bread, and Roses.
Saw an abandoned school
By my work place in an industrial area. The vegetation had overgrown the entire lot, but some folks had planted gardens in the open areas out front where perennials had grown previously. It looks like an oasis in the jungle. Every time I drive by I think of stopping amd asking why they're doing it. Substistamce? Community? What are they growing?