urban garden

After a week of eating killer salsa that Angie and I made from the stuff of our garden I felt compelled to share a post on how the backyard experiment has gone so far this summer. Here's just a few observations...

Centering

Throughout the summer I’ve kept a busy schedule but nearly every day around dawn and/or dusk I've either been watering, harvesting, or sometimes just looking at the progress of the plants. (I did get busted talking to my plants a few times this summer.)

Interesting the level peace and what feels like sacred distraction from the static of life that the garden has offered.  Gardening has been a quiet classroom of learning the BIG rhythms of planting, watering, growing, pruning, and harvesting. While it’s required a bit of investement on my part so much of the outcome has been out of my control. We had unusual dumpings of rain earlier this summer, which had me scooping water out of the box.

The mix of participation and silent observation feels a lot like the rhythms of listening and participation in prayer.

Communal

After I had completed two 6x4 foot boxes the next step was to get them filled with dirt. I asked a neighbor if he knew where I could find some good rich top soil. He said "I don’t know but when you find it you can borrow my truck." So, here I am hauling my yard of dirt in this F-350 diesel. As I had the back gate open in the alley behind the house three sets of neighbors were either helping me haul the dirt into the back yard, sharing garden stories or plans, or just simply connecting with our family.

Simplicity

So much of the produce you buy at the grocery is produced year round by mega factory farms. And there’s increasing evidence that the nutrients and vitamins from those unnatural veggies are minimal.

My mature bell peppers are barely half the size of those found by the hundreds sitting in our local Safeway.

I’ve grown to appreciate the smallness and lack of shine on what I’ve grown in small quantities.

At this point I’ll let you insert all your own metaphors about the church, organic discipleship and so on.

My Personality

I’m an Enneagram 4 and a Myers-Brigg INFP and I found gardening to be a perfect fit for a creative introvert like myself. There’s a unique primal and natural thing that I experienced as my creativity meets the creativity of the earth. I realize that sounds very hippie of me but it just felt deeply good and real.

As a Hoosier I grew up around the farm. My first job as a 14 year old Indiana boy was working on a produce farm pulling sweet corn and both sets of grandparents always had large gardens. So, in this season I’ve found myself quite sentimental thinking through good summertime childhood memories. 

I'll definetly be doing it again next summer and likely expanding it a bit. 

 

Comments

[Wes Roberts]

Dear Farmer Taylor:

What will you take for a good cucumber?

And let either one of us tell you the story of our first summer in Colorado and the tangle we had with zucinni...what a trip (I know, can't spell worth a squash!).

[Ryan]

The cucumbers are pricey, Wes, but lettuce see what we can work out. If you carrot all you'll shell out major beans for them.

[JT]

Love your urban garden, we have a bunch of them popping up here around Detroit. Great re-use of land!