For my first two weeks my work in the garden was mainly focused on preparing the beds by weeding, adding compost, "finessing" the irrigation system or any number of other important tasks that need to be done before our desired plants even make it into the ground. This week was my first chance to focus on harvesting the fruits of our labor. Later in the day, Brent took Kai and I out to inspect the beehives. The first hive we inspected had been purchased- so we were able to locate the Queen by a blue dot painted on her back by the supplier. The other two hives involved a bit of detective work. After inspecting the comb, we found evidence of recent egg-laying activity in both hives- indicating they both had active Queens. This was especially great news because both these hives were free additions to the community- the first was a swarm captured near New Earth Song, and the second just showed up in the empty hive one day. With such a bounty of bees- we might be seeing some honey in the future. Tuesday brought more irrigation work, but set the stage for free time on Wednesday to help Susie with harvesting some roses for jam and syrup. You'd have to ask Susie for the specific recipe, but it involved a copious amount of sugar, water, some lemons, and a dash of pectin to get it to the right consistency. While putting our newly created jam in jars, we had a chance to put some of the stuff fresh on toast. Yum! | On Sunday, Helen gave a lovely presentation on seed saving. We ventured out into the garden and after picking the most desirable plants, we had left a fair few signs fluttering merrily in the breeze. (If you see such a sign, please don't harvest the plant- it's seeds are being saved for future plantings!) On Monday I had the chance to help Helen harvest greens for dinner. Our targets were kale, a few handfuls of lambs quarters, and a rather paltry serving of the lettuce that had survived the weeds and slugs in the southeastern hoop house. On the topic of harvests, the strawberries are popping like popcorn all over Songaia- every day a few more turn a brilliant red and appear to leap out of the foliage. I also had a chance to tie up some raspberry bushes this week in the southwest part of the keyhole garden. The path now takes you around freshly planted tomatoes. It should be a great harvest later in the season! |
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![]() My first contact with Songaia was quite curious. I was at a train station on the California coast waiting for an order to arrive by the time I had an interview with Patricia and Douglas. After several times trying to complete the call, that wouldn´t go because of a loud train arriving or the bad connection at the place, we finally could chat a bit and talk about the ideas and goals of each side involved in this internship. By that time, I already thought that I had screwed my interview and image, but thanks God they accepted me!
Since then, I´ve been challenging myself on how to apply the knowledge obtained at university, now in ´´smaller´´ scales. But I´ll be forever thankful to Patricia and Helen to have invested so much time and energy and showed me this art of cultivating vegetables, trees and lives. By the end of this month I´ll be heading to my next stop, but will certainly bring the memories and experience gained here. I hope I´ll be able to come back visit one day and please, don´t let this dream die guys, the world needs more places like this! Thank you so much. See you soon, love, Gabriel.
![]() I've been eying the compost pile every time I'm in the garden or in the parking lot next to the common house. I swear it has been eying me, too. That pile has been tugging on me, like a child that won't stop nagging an adult until he is given the attention that he craves. Sometimes I walk the extra distance just to cross paths, to check in with it. To take the opportunity to inhale, in one breath, the billions of bacteria ruminating in those gigantic mounds. Because how often does one have an opportunity like that? I've been wanting to write about compost, yet before I could, I felt I needed to go back in time, to the beginning. When I meet someone, one of the first questions I ask them is, “where are you from?” Even though I've grown quite close to compost, allowing its shredded bits to haphazardly coat my face and neck, it occurred to me that I hadn't asked that question of it. So, feeling sheepish, I did some research on its origins. I discovered that the word compost is Latin, and it means “something put together.” ![]() Upon learning this fact, I thought of the t-shirt that every garden volunteer wears and signs the first time they compost. The front of it says, “Compost happens”--which is a joke because compost doesn't just happen. With great care, Songaians roll those heavy three or four food bins down from the common house to the garden, and bend, sometimes for a half hour, sometimes for two hours, over that rumbling wood chipper and repeatedly toss shovelfuls of food waste down its hungry throat. The process is messy. It is loud. It is not for the faint of heart (I don't recommend eating before this event). Compost is without a doubt, something put together. Recently, I heard Patricia talk about composting as a rite of passage at Songaia. I loved that because I can't think of my Songaia experience without thinking of composting. Those rich, gaseous piles have taken on a whole new association for me. I can't think of compost without seeing Doug in my head, clenching a fistful of the stuff and describing, with glistening eyes, the look and texture of ideal compost. I remember a particular day when we raked leaves together. Doug told me how much he loved raking leaves, comparing them to gold in terms of their value to the gardens. That moment has stayed with me because of his sincerity and the truth of the statement, which I have come to experience for myself. ![]() I've been wanting to write about compost because I'll admit it, I'm smitten with compost. Forget gold jewelry; I'm more interested in the everlasting promises of black gold hummus. What substance could have more potential to positively impact, even transform the soil at our feet. I revel in the simplicity and complexity of compost. It is about balance, and unlike many things in life, it comes with a formula. Yet it couldn't be more nuanced with its universe full of microbial secrets. I can't even begin to fathom the number and different types of bacteria pulsing inside those piles. Compost runs on its own time, at its own chosen speed. Don't turn it before it's had adequate time to itself. It will only look at you with dark speckled eyes, as if saying, “Shh, let me be, let me sleep. I'll let you know when I'm ready.” And you will be patient, oh yes, because like anyone who has lived for many seasons at Songaia, you know what the rewards will be like. ![]() The next time I find myself in the parking lot, I will put any of my shyness aside. I will greet that compost pile with all the respect, admiration, and exultation that it deserves. I will stoke it with my pitchfork and smile. I've finally written about compost, but even still, I welcome it to keep on tugging on me. ![]() It was mid-day, the sun hanging behind whitish gray clouds. The breeze coaxed me down the garden bed with its cool hands on my back. I plunged my gloved fingers into the mounds of rabbit manure, and despite the ammonia smell stinging my nostrils, a smile cracked across my mouth. I turned to Helen, my (brave) partner in crime: “You know, a part of me wants to say I never thought I'd be spreading rabbit poop with my hands, but then again..maybe that's not true.” If you took a peak into the pages of my personal history, you'd probably agree. But my story doesn't start off as expected. Growing up in the suburbs right outside Seattle, I didn't have many opportunities to dig my hands into fertile soil, let alone fertile animal manure. My parents kept a modest garden when I was pretty young, but my memories of it are few, and in them I was never the one getting dirty. It wasn't until high school that I even began to think about what it would be like to grow my own food, and not until a few years later, as a college student, that I had my first-hand experience working in a friend's garden plot. ![]() Flip the pages ahead, to a couple years later, and you'll see me living in New Orleans, as a volunteer in a communal house, sharing my home with homeless folks and trying to figure out what it means to be an ally to marginalized communities. Down the street from our house was a community garden where we tended our own plot. I remember the thrill and wonder I felt thumbing through gardening books, learning about this magical philosophy known as permaculture and wondering how I could use it to grow vegetables I'd never even tasted before like okra and collard greens. The greatest pleasure came when it was time to plant my first seeds, and oh how I waited in great anticipation for those little seedlings to finally make their debut inside their cozy little seed trays. An idea came to me to try composting with worms, which I did in a simple plastic bin, and from there my homesteading efforts grew to building a three compartment compost system in our side yard, and eventually, raising chicks in our defunct bathtub. ![]() When I returned to Seattle, with a garden-loving boyfriend in tow, I tried to keep my interests in urban farming and community sustained by joining cooperative houses where there was a shared love for these things. First, we lived in a home with a big garden, quails, rabbits, ducks, chickens, honeybees...(the Shangri La of urban backyards). I discovered that while I loved to plant seeds, I loved to commune with the animals even more. It felt so intimate to watch litter after litter of fuzzy baby bunnies born on our “farm”, and my understanding of these creatures grew when I got to participate in some of the chicken and rabbit slaughterings for meat. It's a bit of a stretch to say, but I felt like a true farmer during those moments. Wise with the knowledge of what it means to watch an animal be born, see it grow, and carefully release it in to the folds of that final part of the life cycle, death. ![]() This past October, I married the same garden-loving boyfriend, and we spent our honeymoon in Vermont among the gold and red tipped trees. For one week of our trip we volunteered on a dairy goat farm, and this was my entrance into the world of wwoofing. It was about half-way through that experience, while walking to and from our daily work sites, my body caked in dirt, my heart swollen with gladness, that I told my husband, Marcus, that I wanted to keep wwoofing. No, not in New England: in Washington. I thought, surely there has to be an urban farm somewhere in close proximity to Seattle, where farmers are just chomping at the bit for an eager volunteer with energy to give. ![]() A simple search on the wwoof site led me to Songaia Co-housing Community, “an oasis of 10+ acres surrounded by the ever-growing suburbs.” Hmm, I thought, an oasis in the suburbs, could such a thing exist? And then I read on to learn that Songaia was an intentional community, and my mind was pretty much made up. The prospect of playing in the dirt, with the additional opportunity to get to know and learn from this unique group of communitarians, made my mouth water. I began my search hoping to find a farm, any farm, close to Seattle that could feed my desire for more open landscape, more productive work that leaves me with a tired satisfaction at the end of the day. What I eventually found in Songaia met me in that way, and in more ways than I think would've been possible at any of the other options near me. Now the pages of my history reveal my life and times as a volunteer at Songaia. It's winter time. The soil may be frosted over, but it would be a mistake to think that there isn't life under there, wriggling about, stirring up something spectacular for seasons to come. I know, because in the little less than two months I've been at Songaia, I've witnessed the resilience of the plants. I've seen dormant garden beds breathe to life again after healthy shovelfuls of rabbit manure. I've watched the tiny, weather chapped plants change from pea soup yellow to vibrant, almost electric, green, just from lifting their winter cloches, announcing their rearrival in the garden. But best of all, I'm in a special position to witness the resiliency and vibrancy of the community of people who live here. Slowly, trustingly, they let me in to their lives, and I sense their heartaches, their joys, their commitment to one another, their ear for the land; the web of life they are creating together. Here, I find myself becoming a part of their web, and I feel gratitude. I rub the rabbit manure between my fingers, and yes, maybe this was inevitable. All of it. ![]() It has been two and a half months now since I have left Songaia. Since then I have had one or two dreams about Patricia urgently reminding me to write my blog. The anxiety about this blog being written was creeping around every thought...I felt the blog needed to show the full extent of my appreciation and this is the reason I haven't gotten it done. I just can not put in words what living and working at Songaia did for me. I have never transitioned so much in my life and I owe a lot to everyone at Songaia. You all taught me something important. If I were to explain what you all taught me, it would take a few pages more, so just know that each and every one of you carries within yourselves something very beautiful. I am so blessed to have had you all as teachers, I will carry on the advice throughout my journeys. I wonder often how you all are doing and how the garden is getting along, I hope the holidays have been full of good memories and good food, although I'm very certain they were. ![]() Since I have been home, I have really had to take a lot of meditation time on whether to stay or go from San Juan. There has been so much developement even in the 6 months I was gone and still they are building. I wanted so badly to return to the pacific northwest where I wouldn't see signs of doom impending around every corner, where people are generally a little more aware than here in Orange County. However, more and more signs pointed me to stay home. I have to involve myself in this town which I have grown up in, this town that is quickly turning into a city. I have got to help remind people we can still be a community. I got a job at a local health food store and I think I might get a job at the ecology center in town where I will also be taking a course to get my Permaculture Design Certificate. Hopefully this involvement will be enough and my knowledge will grow so that I can begin to reach out to people. Even if it means going door to door getting signatures, pushing a few truthful words and having the possibility of being called a hippie and getting a door slammed in my face. ![]() For now, I have been collecting food waste from my own kitchen and my father and I have built a compost bin from old wood sitting on our side yard. A summer with high temperature and water shortages left southern california's land looking hungry, including my parent's garden. However, with my hands and heart I look to heal this little piece of land around our house. With the earth crying and the old people who dwell within it yell, it's easiest to sooth it slowly out of it's nightmare. When this chaotic world attempts to enter my skull, I will find peace in the garden. Something I'm sure all the Biogaians understand well. ![]() In my wanderings, I have often pondered “How did I get here, to this place in time? How did everyone get here?” I know, I know…you’re probably thinking “how could this be related to the garden?!” Well. Just be patient. I have carried my ancestors from Europe with me always, but especially through this trip (my W.W.O.O.F.ing trip that started in May) as they were farmers as far back as our family’s written history will go. I find that my fingers grow calluses gratefully after a hard day’s work and I feel my ancestors supporting the strength of my skin to earn harvest. Then there are other ancestors giving me strength, yet I do not know what they did or where exactly they came, just that they were from this side of the world. Deep inside they have always been and will always be, giving my bones the courage they need to move, only in a very different way. ![]() Having different parts of myself coming from different sides of the earth, with very different traditions, has always had me wondering where I belong. “Where do I understand the land best? How can I be most beneficial to this planet?” However, I am displaced, as are many Americans, and I do not quite remember the ways of the land my ancestors tended for so many thousands of years. Here at Songaia I am reminded that, no matter how far we have traveled, or what blood runs through our veins, we are human and we stand on land. What we choose to do, live to survive or live to profit, is what matters. The humility we keep is the important part. As long as we decide to cherish and support the land, helping it to thrive, to regenerate and give it hopes for many years of health, we have a place to live. We are welcome. ![]() We must always remember we are standing on the ashes of someone else’s ancestors. With this new diversity of people, plants, and animals, permaculture is a beautiful step into oneness. It combines all the ancient wisdom into a modern world and connects us again to the land. As Patricia, Amy and I begin to plant cover crops and blanket them with remay, all the knowledge that was thus gained here has been seeded and covered to grow into my next journey as well. As the garden turns, I turn. I will miss greatly all that is Songaia, I will miss each and everyone’s individual beauty. I will never forget the faces, the laughter, the shared wisdom, and the teeming garden I was so blessed to have tended. Thank you for this opportunity, thank you for showing me that a supportive community is possible is this brave new world. |
AuthorGarden bloggers are community members, volunteers and interns at Songaia. Archives
August 2023
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