It’s worthy of pondering… the response to uncertainty. First, toilet paper and pasta vanish from shelves, then we bake bread and plant vegies. When let out for a brief hiatus of fresh air options, van loads of nature-deprived citizens disgorge into the areas with the least amount of concrete, seeking the promise of peace and tranquillity. It’s the antidote to being cooped up - feeling earth under your feet, nature breathing green around you, vast skies stretching out above you. Perhaps you’re wondering about the wisdom of concrete. Mmmm.
If this is what makes us feel better under extreme stress, if this is our restorative need, why wait until such a time to embrace it? Why not keep a shed full of loo paper and pasta, bake bread every week and grow vegies all the time? Why not grow nature more than concrete?
I believe we became disconnected from the cycle of life. We thought we were in control of that. Humans supreme, Nature second. 2020 has been quite some education on the order of things then.
What’s this got to do with growing food?
The cycle of life is so easy to see when planting a seed you hope will, in time, provide the very thing needed to survive. There’s the matter of the soil - let’s call it seed love. With a lovely bed of rich, moist, worm laden and crumbly dirt, our seed begins to open. We are no different, needing nurturing conditions to help us be ourselves, to open up to the world.
Then the first leaves appear airside if all is right with the soil. Our little vegetable-to-be is greeted with delight, reward for planting hope. Now is time for gentle patience. Forget control, it’s not about you. It’s between this little plant and Nature. You just hang around and pour in the love, delicately coax out the weeds, trickle in a little water and wait. And trust. It will be what it is meant to be.
Funnily enough, if you tread on it at this point, it will end badly. Fatal is likely, forever stunted otherwise. Back to the vegetable-to-be.
In some weeks this blooming love affair begins to mature into a fully-fledged adult vegetable. Leaf by leaf, sprout by sprout, we thank it for its gift on our plate and urge more growth - what more does it need to help it grow? Ah... more of what went into that luscious love bed of soil. Yesss…
And then, within a season of Nature’s rhythm we call a year, our vegetable-to-be is in the twilight days. Do you rip it out or leave it be? It’s sustained you, given you purpose, taught you patience, shown you hope is fed with trust - what more could it give?
But we are only halfway through the cycle of life. Of course there is more.
In time.
Part 1 - Betsy-Sue Clarke
12 July 2020
Image 1: Source - Pixabay
Images 2-5: Supplied Betsy-Sue Clarke