There is magic in a garden

A 'before' picture of the 25' x 108' lot on the sunny side of Kaslo's main street that will become home of the People's Garden.

There is something about gardening that is grounding and centering, that puts us more closely in touch with our inner self and helps us more easily connect with the goodness in everyone and everything. Somehow, planting our feet in the warm earth and holding living green plants in our hands evokes the best from our experience on earth.

It is not surprising then that in times of uncertainty and change people are more eager to restore their connection with the earth through gardening and pursuits of all kinds in and with nature. Whether it is due to the rise in food costs and stories of food-shortage riots, or just to a general longing to get back in touch with nature, the result is the same. People are becoming ever-more aware of food sovereignty and the need for local sources of food, and with that the importance of growing food locally. Thus more and more people are discovering an interest in learning how to grow their own food.

Hard on the heels of the 100-mile diet, food-security programs and community gardens and greenhouses, there is now a new twist.

The People’s Garden

A couple of long-time biodynamic gardeners in the village of Kaslo, on the shores of Kootenay Lake, have drafted a “People’s Garden Manifesto” (see below) and will be implementing the principles of that manifesto by exercising stewardship over a vacant lot on the main street, which they plan on turning into a public garden, with the owner’s consent.

The Kaslo People’s Garden will be across the street from the local branch of Selkirk College, where Barbara Scott and Woody Wodraska will be teaching a biodynamic gardening course, using the People’s Garden for hands-on training. Not only will they be teaching the pragmatics of gardening, but also the philosophy embodied in their manifesto.

“We propose to teach all aspects of family scale food growing, in a time when political and corporate power structures are failing us and the Planet.” — from their website (http://www.soulmedicinejourney.com)

Woody and Barbara are no ordinary gardeners — they are biodynamic gardeners, seed savers, people who live a principled values-driven life. When I first met them, about ten years ago, they had turned the top of a rock outcropping on the south side of Creston into lush organic gardens. They then moved to spend four years traveling in the U.S., where they taught gardening, and have now recently returned to BC, settling in the Kaslo area.

Woody has written Deep Gardening: Soul Lessons from 17 Gardens, which is available on their website, along with seeds that they have grown out and saved, some for 20 years. Please visit http://www.soulmedicinejourney.com

Kaslo People’s Garden Manifesto

(by Woody Wodraska and Barbara Scott)

We have come to the understanding that we can separate gardens—as celebrations of beauty and nutrition—from notions of ownership and commerce.

There is magic in a garden, and sustenance, but ownership is less important than stewardship and there need be no dollar profit. We need gardens, all of us, to remind us of who we are and the connection between our bodies and the Earth.

We know the Earth in our bones, and in our hands when they are in a tending mode, and our souls when we sense the good, the true, and the beautiful around us…and where better to do those things than in a garden?

The heroes and heroines of the coming decades will be those who can grow food with love; food that sings with vitality and natural power. For “coming decades” read “my children’s adult life” and the childhood of their children. Can we stretch ourselves to care about three generations even seven generations?

The systems we want to engage are village life, family life, community, the merging of nutrition and education for our children; all in the service of life and to honor our solidarity with the plant kingdom. This is is what we stand for with our People’s Garden. Join us if you will, but there are no membership fees…no card-carrying gardeners here, just ones who help, whose heart responds to what we can do together.

Learning outcomes of the “Gardening for People” course

Depending on beginning experience level, students will significantly increase their competence as gardeners, as thinkers about gardens, as observers of Nature, as plant-tenders, as providers of family food. Outcomes will be measured by student evaluation forms and brief essays, guest book comments at the People’s Garden and the enthusiasm of Front Street merchants.

The course consists of the following sessions:

• Preparing the garden (and the mind), philosophy, garden design issues, equipment, seeds and planning (early April)
• Using the Stella*Natura gardening calendar preparing ground in the People’s Garden (late April)
• Planting the early garden—flowers, hardy herbs, salad, succession planting (early May)
• Maintenance in the garden, replanting (late May)
• Plant the warm weather garden—tomatoes, beans, peppers, melons, squash (early June)
• First harvest of salad, maintenance, replanting (late June)
• “Being biodynamic”—working with life forces in the garden (early July)
• Seed saving (late July)
• Introduction to conscious composting (early August)
• Seed saving (late August)
• Finishing up in the garden (early September)

Woody and neighbor Adri pose for Barbara in their garden (toy cell phone is not biodynamic) -- Idaho, 2006.

Woody Wodraska’s 40-year gardening career has taken him to 17 gardens and another dozen agricultural endeavors in almost as many states and provinces. Always the questions arose — how to grow food, how to live in beauty and abundance with grace and in harmony and in co-creation with devas and nature spirits. From backyard family gardens to a CSA enterprise feeding 100 families, Woody started from scratch or built on other gardeners’ visions. His book, Deep Gardening: Soul Lessons from 17 Gardens, Biodynamic Memories, is now available at http://www.trafford.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000138866