Wheat-straw paths surround my garden beds and I have been replenishing the straw several times a year for six years now. And so it shouldn't have come as a suprise to me, yet it did, that when I accidentally scratched on a patch of ground beneath the straw between two of my beds, the once-hard and red clay underneath was soft and black and gorgeous. And so I wondered, while I had been covering my paths all these years, had I, in fact, been unknowingly making fertile soil?
I scratched more and loosened this rich and beautiful composted straw, and then, as I do continuously in the garden, I decided to do an experiment. I would plant in this patch, without any further soil amendments. And I would see what was possible.
Sure enough, now when I go out to the garden and see the spring crops stretching and smiling and growing seemingly overnight, I see this patch of red-leaf lettuces keeping pace with its companions. And I glance around my garden, its 11 beds all surrounded by this same straw, ambundant paths everywhere that are most likely just as fertile underneath. And I, like that soil, feel suddenly rich.
My mind starts swirling with possibility. Do I plant in the paths this year and effectively double my gardening space? Do I flip the beds and the paths so that the paths can produce and the beds can take a break? Do I add Dutch clover to the paths and increase their fertility? Do I finally have room for a respectable stand of corn?
And I wonder about what's happening underneath, under cover. Not just in my garden, but in the world. About what's getting more fertile. For change. For imagination. For possibility.
I think about GOOD magazine. Bioneers. Center for Ecoliteracy. The World Wildlife Fund. The Oakhurst Community Garden. Grameen Bank's micro-credit loans that are lifting poor people with incredible talents out of poverty and empowering them to blaze a previously unforeseen path to a previously unimagined future. The lady at my daughter's school who just got chickens, here in suburbia. The list is endless. Artists and businesspeople and philanthropists and neighbors and friends and family who are changing the path. Who are scratching below the surface. And who are finding that the ground is ready. That the time is now.
4 comments:
Funny thing - this was exactly what occurred to me last spring. Years of covering the paths with mulched-up this and that plus sawdust which is nice to tread on. Everything came up in the paths during autumn / winter so, in spring, I shovelled about a 4" layer off the paths and onto the garden beds. Now you see my plan is this - make compost on the paths then scoop it up every year onto the beds! That way there is no shifting this and that around in wheel-barrows at all; just lay it thickly along all the paths - straw, sawdust, leaves, etc etc.The worms work away and bingo! there's your compost all ready for you to spread on whenever you need it! I am waiting for that postman, like Maggie's dogs waiting for Flat Stanley!!
GREAT idea, Kate! Thanks!
I meant to say that I love that idea that we and others are cratching below the surface and the time is right to do something with what we find there. I am digging a lot deeper than ever and turning over some beautiful, rich experiences. When I bring them to the surface I hope they fertilise the minds of everyone around me.(I think I write about that...)
Well, I just dug up one of my paths and the compost beneath it is GORGEOUS. So your point works both figuratively and literally!
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