Nature spirits

July 23, 2009

Dear Leslie,

Forty or so years ago, some residents of a seaside trailer park in Scotland began attracting attention for growing 40-pound cabbages. The founders of this place they called Findhorn said this kind of bounty was possible by tuning into nature spirits. "They will be overjoyed to find some members of the human race eager for their help," a wee voice in one founder's head told her.

At Findhorn, gardeners think of themselves as co-creators with nature. In my own garden, one of us co-creators seems to be napping.

My garden is called a lasagna garden, so called because it consists of multiple layers of compost, peat moss and most anything else that decomposes. It's meant to produce vegetables or flowers without the need for tilling or bother of weeding.

More than the supposed ease of growing, the idea of becoming more self-sufficient enticed me to give my first garden a try.

So far my backyard casserole is almost nutrition-free.

The cucumbers, beans, peas, lettuce, radishes, carrots, peppers, potatoes and gourds went into the ground in early May. Rows of corn went in a separate plot to keep from crowding the other vegetables. I have watered diligently.

The garden is putting on a show of looking verdant, but I'm beginning to wonder when the real goods are going to show up.

The cucumber and gourd vines have climbed along an archway of PVC pipe to a height of about 12 feet. But so far no cucumbers or gourds have appeared.

Last week, impatience led me to pull at one of the radish stems. At the other end was a small jewel DC sliced into tiny pieces to decorate our dinner salad. I savored each minuscule bite.

Nothing from a store tastes quite like something you've grown yourself, people say. Coffee or tea in a cup DC has made at her potter's wheel seems to taste better, too. Scientists might disagree.

This week, impatient again, I dug at the end of the garden where the potato plants were green and leafy. Beneath them I found nothing. How could that be? Yesterday DC did some digging herself and turned up two potatoes the size of fat knuckles. She came inside the house excited to show them to me. Aha, I thought.

We returned to the garden to search for more, but that was the potato harvest.

Only two stalks have appeared in the corn plot.

It's mostly true that weeds won't grow in a lasagna garden, but it would be nice if vegetables did.

The time might have come to ask the nature spirits for help.

Many years ago I met some people who had lived at Findhorn. From their garden they offered me delicious tomatoes the size of softballs. Findhorn has grown into an international center for the study of spirituality and sustainable living with 90 "green" buildings and a foundation recognized by the United Nations. People from all over the world go there to learn about ways to live with nature.

The ecological footprint at Findhorn is half the national average in the U.K. Here on Lorimier Street, the footprint remains elephantine for now.

Love, Sam

sj-blackwell@att.net;