crown of violets

Magic Moldy Cabbage

{Food is meant to be shared and I hope that if you find this post useful you will pass it on to anyone who could use it.}

I haven’t had to go grocery shopping in seven months. My roommate and I occasionally pick up treats, but our cupboards and freezers have been full all autumn and winter. When they begin to deplete, we also know how to fill them back up again, without going to the grocery store. I’ve spent less than five hundred dollars at the grocery store since August.

What has made the most difference has been learning traditional methods of gardening. Traditional gardening yields more produce per area than conventional gardening, as well as many plants giving multiple harvests in one season. The difference can literally mean having one squash per plant for the season versus having twenty. There’s no real right or wrong way, no dogma. The strength of traditional gardening is how people approach their relationship with the earth. Through learning the cycles of the earth and plants, you learn what part of the plant to use, how to harvest at the height of health, how often to harvest, and what plants help each other flourish.

Scatter seeds instead of planting in rows. Use weeds (plants you don’t want in your garden) as mulch by tossing them back on the ground from where you pulled them up. I like to separate the root of particularly invasive plants and toss the root out of harms way. Plant a variety of companion plants in the same space. Peppers and tomatoes grow well together because they’ve been doing it for many, many years in South America. Squash, beans, and sun root all help each other grow. Chamomile is a great companion plant for tea plants, herbs, and many types of vegetables.

Gardening using plants native to the area where you’re planting makes things much easier. Look around and see what naturally grows in nature around you. Since I was a child, I’d considered dandelions a weed. Lovely golden colour, but more a nuisance than anything. The dandelion flourishes here and many lawn owners curse the day the tooth of the lion decided to settle in our fair soil. This summer I learned quite a lesson when I was taught the many uses of dandelions. Every part of the dandelion is edible. At a wild foods workshop, a lady had even brought a dandelion cake with a light mint frosting that was absolutely delicious! She had substituted ground dandelion root for cocoa in a chocolate cake recipe. The root can also be used to make a drink similar to coffee, which I have never tried. Dandelion roots should be harvested from plants that are three to four years old. Dandelion leaves make a great bitter tea to drink before your meal to stimulate digestion. Our wild foods workshop presenter mentioned he loved the tender young leaves for a salad. A bitter green salad is also great before a meal to stimulate digestion. Dandelion jellies and wine are also popular.

I like to grow native plants outdoors, letting them follow their natural cycles, while growing other varieties indoors where they get more of a Mediterranean climate. Whenever I’m looking for something new to grow, I also look into the availability of heritage seeds, mostly because these seeds don’t have the genetic splicing that has been done to many other commercial seeds. Somehow fish genes in my tomatoes doesn’t sit too well with me. I’m not too worried about this either though, as within a few generations a plant will normally revert to its original state, regardless of anything we’ve spliced them with so far.

Perhaps the most basic skill I’ve learned in the past year about gathering food is to observe my environment. I live in an urban environment but I still know where berry bushes are, where to get acorns, tiger lily bulbs, and sun roots, all of which are edible. I know where to find teas outside my own garden for stimulating digestion, for soothing digestion, to help you sleep, to getting rid of icky stomach bugs, to promote menstrual health. All this involved was taking the time to walk my neighbourhood and learn what plants were growing. With time and study, I’ll learn to harvest from plants from many different environments. I also know how to tell which plants are healthy to harvest, which are suffering from soil deficiencies, and which need more time.

Use this skill for observation in the community around you as well.
The next biggest resource for us this year for food has been neighbourhood programs. I volunteered weekly this summer with our community’s food security organization. The goal of the program is to make nutritious and affordable food available to residents. It does this by working with members to offer community cafes, potlucks, and fresh food boxes in the winter months. My favourite part of the program were the trips to a local farm and the community market where they sold the organic vegetables gathered from the farm.

I’ve also traded for teas, herbs, eggs and other resources that our neighbours had that I didn’t. A lady from Burma asked my roommate for squash flowers and leaves from her plants for a soup. Not only did she gift food in return, she offered to share the soup when it was made. Another friend of my roommate’s who works at a community center called her a couple of months ago. The center is a pick-up point for the food bank and on a regular basis, half of the people who had signed up wouldn’t show up. The ones that did wouldn’t touch the boxes full of farm fresh vegetables because they had dirt on them. They had become so disconnected from where their food was coming from that they saw the dirt as unclean. As a result literally crates of food were being thrown out about three times a week. My roommate started making regular trips to see if there are leftovers and when there is, we distribute it to our apartment building, our friends, and other individuals who distribute their own communities. As a result, she’s building a network that is getting food to people who need it. I’ve watched her do this and begun doing it in my own circle.

All the resources we need are there if we look for them. Learn how to cultivate and share the abundance we’re surrounded with. Start up some seedlings in a container. Make it an easy, delicious salad mix that won’t take long to sprout. Connect and network with your friends and family. We already have more than enough, we just need some practice getting it around.

{ by Hieronymus Bosch }

“If woman lost us Eden, such as she alone can restore it.” ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

While I don’t know too much about Mr. Whittier’s work, I thought this quote was particularly interesting and very fitting with the work of art I’m contemplating today.

The Eden depicted in this image is another manifestation of a common human theme of paradise, places of beauty, pleasure and delight where every creature lives in harmony. Paradise is woven into the fabric of our deepest dreams and desires, prevalent in most types of mythic literature. These places are compelling to us, places where our desires and wishes are fulfilled. We are searching for happiness and fulfillment. Paradise promises that we can have that the moment we walk through its pearly, ivy-twined gates. It can seem a far cry from the world we’re surrounded with, but perhaps paradise is closer than we’ve ever dreamed.

It comes as no surprise that many of images of Paradise are depicted as gardens. Gardening has only been a part of my life for the past six months and I never could have imagined how much it would change me. The effects have been gentle, but universal. It’s through working in traditional gardens (gardens planted according to the ways of indigenous peoples) that I’ve truly begun to understand the beautiful simplicity and masterful complexity of Nature. Gardening has kept me fed through the winter, as I try to remove my dependence on industries that worship money and follow a spirit of dominance instead of love. It has provided both sustenance and a sense of security as food prices soar. It has awakened a deep sense of connection to the earth that a childhood spent with electronic devices and indoors didn’t foster. It has nurtured and given expression to the healer in me and allowed me to take my health and happiness into my own hands. The garden has empowered me. It has centered me. It has allowed me a space to open myself to love and beauty. Nothing is as sensual as working in Nature. The garden is full of colour and sound, wonderful tastes and intoxicating smells like the sweet smell of wild strawberries as the earth is turned, the cool taste of dew that collects in squash flowers, lemon balm and basil covering my hands and filling my head as I gather their leaves for tea.

Working in the garden has also given me a sense of responsibility through my growing connection to the earth. As I walk through my city, plants and trees become less generic. I naturally pick out the plants I’ve been blessed to learn about and begin to see at the natural abundance that surrounds us. These are familiar friends and energies I see in my own space, that I tend and work with. I feel a connection that can only grow as I learn more and more. I see the plants I don’t know and think about how very much I have to learn and where that will take me. Plants travel the earth and we follow them. We are travelers and adventurers and the land calls for us to explore it. We have nothing to fear, because plants are always around us.

Wherever you go, Nature is there. We have certain gifts that other animals don’t, but that doesn’t mean that we’re outside of Nature’s domain. I can easily name dozens of plants and animals that can do things I’ve yet to learn how to do. We as people like to think we are observers, but we and all we create are just as much a part of Nature as the plants, the animals, the stars, the very sky itself. Nature extends from the core beneath us to the natural world to the physical universe. The universe has been making different types of life for a long time and we are simply another piece of the puzzle. Nature’s got the big stuff covered. When I think of that and see how surrounded by abundance I am in the garden, I feel at peace. There’s always something to share and learn. I know all of my needs will be met, that I live in a beautiful world, full of harmony and delight. Sounds a little bit like Paradise.

Perhaps instead of a place, Paradise is a way of living. Maybe Paradise can be found in something as simple as living in harmony with our environment. As we grow in our understanding of how our past decisions and current actions affect the whole of our planet, those that choose love consider how their actions ripple outward to shape the world they live in. We make decisions that will bring health and happiness to their lives and spread it to everything we encounter. This feeds the spirit of love, generosity, and harmony in our world that understands that all we need to live in harmony with Nature and to find Paradise is to be our true selves, the powerful, creative and loving creatures we were meant to be.