By Laura Henderson / Collective operations steward, Growing Places Indy
I have asked hundreds of children over the years, what do plants need to grow? Most children can tell you that plants need: soil, water, sun, food (nutrients), and air or space to grow. In a garden, we would add that plants need care. So let’s imagine we are planting a garden together.
We find a space for it and prepare the soil. We even do a soil test. Part of our garden is along a road, and the soil test tells us that there are dangerously high levels of lead in that part of the garden. This means we should either not plant there, or we should take measures to ensure that soil is effectively “capped off” so lead particles are not released into the air, and either not plant in that area or build raised beds with clean soil over top of the soil barrier.
The soil test also shows that we will need to add nutrients to our soil, where the soil is safe for planting.
We ensure we have a clean water source.
We ensure we have adequate sun exposure.
We plan a variety of crops for the garden, buy seeds and seedlings and plant – ensuring good spacing so our plants have the room they need to grow. And the garden starts to grow.
As the garden grows, we discover that an area that seemed to get adequate sunlight actually gets a bit too much shade by the time the leaves on the trees next door fully leaf out. This would be an ideal location for a harvest and wash station! We learn that we can’t sufficiently rely on rain to provide enough water, so we invest in hoses and drip irrigation. We learn how to compost and other methods for ensuring the plants in the garden have the nourishment they need to grow and produce abundantly. We learn great lessons, develop our skills and see that we can grow a thriving garden in which everything we grow can flourish.
What if the next year, with all the information we had, we still planted some plants in the shade? What if we didn’t set up the hoses and irrigation, even though we had the knowledge and resources? Or what if we only set irrigation up for part of the garden, but not all of the garden. What if we only fertilized part of the garden, even though we had enough compost and resources to fertilize all of the garden?
It would be apt to wonder if we had forgotten what we learned. Even to be curious whether we wanted part of the garden to fail to thrive.
Especially if in the next year we did the same thing. And the next year we did it again.
And, especially if we kept reducing the percentage of the garden that we irrigated, and reducing the part of the garden where we nourished the soil to fertilize the plants, or built structures that shaded more of the garden even as we kept planting in the shaded area. Oh, and we just quit weeding one area, and started crowding too many plants into another.
Other gardeners might wonder if we really knew what we were doing. Or maybe if for some strange reason we wanted our garden to fail.
Let’s imagine some friendly gardeners reached out to ask if we needed some help, or if we wanted some tips on how to grow a more thriving and abundant garden, because at this point, we have only a very small patch of thriving garden.
How strange, absurd even, it would be if our response was to say, “Our garden is growing great! It’s the best garden around.
“Those plants over there (pointing to the shaded area), they are just lazy. It’s their fault they aren’t growing well and thriving..
“And anyway, we have the greatest garden! In fact, our garden is more productive than yours.
“What those plants (pointing to the areas that aren’t irrigated), it’s their fault. They’re just inferior plants. We can’t help that they just aren’t as strong. They make bad choices in that area of the garden. And besides, sometimes plants in that area are hugely successful, proving the rest just aren’t trying hard enough and just aren’t doing the things they need to do to thrive. And, no, it has nothing to do with the fact that we didn’t use irrigation there. We already told you that last year there were some hugely successful plants that grew there. If some plants just don’t know how to grow, that’s on them.
“Oh, and it’s not our responsibility to pull those weeds. If the plants can’t keep them out, then they just have to figure out how to grow with the weeds.”
Other gardeners might be confused, perhaps concerned. Some might keep trying to help us see the folly of our ways.
Even within our own garden, some gardeners might try to speak up. Some might sneak into the garden when others aren’t around and water, pull weeds, maybe spread slow-release nutrients to the undernourished plants.
Some might start holding workshops in our garden trying to help our fellow gardeners to see that perhaps we are creating the conditions for parts of our garden to fail while others thrive.
Yet some of our gardeners keep denying that our garden is struggling, while also arguing that the many resources we have available to care for the whole garden should only or primarily be invested in the parts that are producing well.
The next year in our garden, one barrel is filled with water and it is declared that this water will be used to water the non-irrigated portions of the garden. Then we fight with each other over who gets to use the water in the barrel, even though we have excess water available to the parts of the gardens that have been tended well for years now.
The children of the other gardeners might start asking why the gardeners of our garden do such nonsensical things.
Then, it is declared that our garden will only be growing in the parts of the garden that we have tended well, and which are thus thriving. Other gardeners ask why, and they are told with gusto:
“They were stealing the nutrients from the soil. Didn’t you see what was happening?”
“They were threatening the plants that were doing well. We can’t risk it. We believe they want to keep the other plants from thriving too.”
Gardeners from other gardens might look at us quizzically. Is this some kind of strange joke? Some might even get angry or exasperated with us.
“You are the gardeners!” they might say. “You have all the compost you need to nourish the entire garden. You knew plants weren’t going to grow in the shade, but you planted them there anyway. You have all the irrigation you need – or at least you did – but you only ensure part of the garden has water when there isn’t enough rain. And you could keep planting in the low area that you know will flood when there is too much rain. On top of all of that, you’ve been planting directly into the soil with high lead levels, and there are starting to be signs of lead toxicity in your children, but you deny it. It’s absolutely absurd to blame the other plants in the garden for any of this. You, the gardeners, have created all of this. Some plants thrive and others fail because of the choices and decisions you’ve made and the actions you have and have not taken.”
Some of us agree, and say yes, we have created this. It’s high time we do what we need to do to redress our ways. In fact, it’s possible that most of the gardeners in our garden agree. But some are afraid of making the gardeners who’ve been growing in the well-resourced parts of the garden mad. Others have bought into the idea that the plants are responsible for their own success or failure.
So what will happen to our garden?
In the real life version of this story, we are all the gardeners – and we are all the plants. As the gardeners, we determine the fate of our garden and all that is growing in it. How we use our voices or don’t. How we take action or don’t. How we stand up for those experiencing the brunt of our misguided gardening practices, or don’t – waiting to see who will be next to be denied the rights to thrive, maybe believing it won’t be us – until we all lose.
I am fortunate enough to still spend a great deal of time with children. If you listen to them as they play and argue, they talk about what is happening in the world. They are worried about friends, family members, teachers and classmates who themselves or whose families fear deportation (including those here with all the necessary documentation). They are talking about the absurdity of the idea that people be limited to the binary of male or female.
They are not concerned about restricting who plays on what sports teams, they just want their friends – and themselves – to be able to live authentically. They can name the abnormality of treating people differently and denying or granting people rights, access and opportunity based on the color of their skin. They also talk about how they experience this personally. Perhaps more of us could see clearly when we were children too – before years of compounding cognitive dissonance from gaslighting and conditioning made the absurd seem justifiable and the abnormal appear as just the way things are.
Will we stop fighting over the relatively small bucket of funding for public education when there is a reservoir of public funds being made available to private schools through vouchers? Will we recognize that banning topics related, or perceived to be related to diversity, equity, inclusion, race, ethnicity, gender, and implicit bias amounts to doubling down on intentional, law enforced injustice? Will we access the hindsight, insight and foresight (as the great Ruby Sales says) to see the destruction that will follow, if we choose to roll back the gains of the Civil Rights area and grow our garden in illogical ways, ensuring that many will struggle while few thrive, until the whole garden is in shambles.
“The state of the world we live in is so depressing. And this is not because of the reality of the men who run it but because it just doesn’t have to be that way. The possibilities of life are so great and beautiful that to see less wears the spirit down.” – Nikki Giovanni
Want to help grow a thriving garden for everyone? One in which all the gardeners and all the plants flourish? Reach out and connect: info@growingplacesindy.org.
