Garden Mama Growing

I had never successfully grown anything edible before I became a Mama. Fond childhood memories in my great grandparents garden sparked an interest that had been developing a few years prior as I collected seeds along my travels and trialed sprouting them a few times, but my nomadic lifestyle throughout my twenties meant I didn’t stay in one place long enough to see a growing season through from beginning to end.

It wasn’t until my first born, now 11 years old, came along that the inspiration awakening in me became a serious mission to pursue teaching myself how to grow food. One that propelled me to “run away to the trees” with my baby girl from Ontario to the west coast in search of a place to realize my dreams of deepening my connection with the earth and the food that sustains us.

Stumbling across a Craigslist ad for a cabin rental on Mayne Island, a speck in the sea I had never even heard of, was a blessing I can only fully appreciate in hindsight of how much we learned and grew over the decade we called the island home. My gardening efforts expanded from a little plot in the community garden that I savagely killed everything with neglect during a heat wave in that first year to eventually landing a rental with a half acre yard to garden including a fruit orchard with peaches, plums, pears, apples, cherries, gooseberries, elderberries and currants among the delicious things to forage and learn to preserve.  A small plexiglass greenhouse and later an additional poly hoop house provided capacity to run a seedlings roadstand for four years, selling more than 5,000 pots of plant babies out my gate before the landlords sold the house and we made our big move to Nanaimo.

Over the years I’ve grown two more babies and this relentless motivation and enthusiasm to show them that food comes from the ground (not a grocery store shelf) has only become more deeply rooted in my psyche as the most important lesson I could ever teach them. It troubles me deeply and shakes me in my soul that the most primal skill to human survival -the ability to simply feed oneself-  has been nearly eradicated from mainstream society in less than 100 years as food preserving technology and industrial agriculture altered our access to knowledge that sustained us as societies for thousands of years of civilization prior.

The transition back to city life has been a startling wake-up call to the increase in food security challenges for families (my own included) as skyrocketing rent and food prices leave too many people struggling to make ends meet. As a former board member of the Mayne Island Food Bank, I stay subscribed to Food Banks BC and they stress that across the province, “rates of food insecurity have nearly doubled since 2019”. It should be no surprise that most community food banks are struggling to keep up with the surge in demand with lack of funding and lack of volunteers, which these organizations rely on to provide this essential service. Just last week the city of Kingston, Ontario declared food insecurity an emergency, following behind similar motions from Mississauga and Toronto. And yet fertile spaces are everywhere and the innate desire to grow things lives in so many of us. The solutions are closer than we think.

It’s not lost on me that having the time and space to dedicate myself to growing food, especially throughout COVID isolation, was a privilege that the majority of families don’t have easy access to, which is why I’ve been so inspired and pleased to find a number of community growing spaces in Nanaimo. Places where I can keep my hands in the dirt while the kids forage for  kale flowers and fresh strawberries nearby. Places that could inspire other communities with the right people engaged to work together to make them happen.

Thinking long and hard about what the last 100 years of human progress has looked like, and what the future holds in the next 100 years as my children and grandchildren inherit the world, I’m unnerved by the possibilities of hardship they will encounter. So much in this world is wildly out of our control when it comes to political and economic agendas, the ravaging effects of climate change, the population growth alongside resource depletion and the big wasteful capitalist machine driving us towards an ecological suicide. The collective anxiety and grief I know I’m not alone in feeling can be soul crushing some days.

But every time I plant a seed and later watch my kids eat fresh from a plant I nurtured to feed them, it feels like I’m getting something right. It gives me hope.

Hope that they remember their roots and their undeniable connection to the earth that feeds us. Hope that I’ve given them something invaluable, nourishing and sustaining that won’t be forgotten in their adult years just as I will never forget those days in my grandparents’ garden, because in my experiences over the last decade it’s not just about the food. It’s the way that growing food has cultivated so much more for me than just vegetables. It has nurtured many friendships and a deeply rooted sense of community in my life. My knowledge of the incredible diversity of edible plants has flourished. I have grown patience in pocketfuls and confidence in my own role as someone who tends to the earth. Who tries to give back to the bees and the soil. Who looks to the future knowing that the seeds I plant today – in gardens or in thoughts – will grow a better future for them tomorrow.

Want to get connected with people who are GROWING for a food secure future? Join our Facebook community Let’s Get Growing Canada! or stay in touch with my monthly newsletter.