Nature doesn't move in straight lines and neither do I
At some point while I was in University I decided that I wanted to get into growing food. I really cannot remember exactly why, but I think I was reading a lot about reliance and resilience and one easy way people often recommend developing those qualities is to try and grow something.
My Mum, a prolific gardener, had a side plot that wasn’t being used and graciously donated the space to me. I was living at home at the time and could spend a lot of time gardening. I remember planting lettuces, silverbeet, celery, tomatoes and even some heirloom seeds. I can’t remember it all but it was a bounty. My last summer before I moved out the tomatoes grew 2m tall and I missed a lot of them as I was studying :(
As the garden grew, I started reading more and watching more TV about food growing and planting. It was the peak of the food movement, a micro-moment where a few commentators were advocating moving away from industrial agriculture to more localised systems of food production. And while ultimately that movement failed, it was a really interesting moment to be spending more time in the garden, eating food I grew and participating in the community. I think that movement is over-rated and under-appreciated. More localised systems of produce would be a lot better for people in lots of ways, but are unlikely to solve large scale problems (but that’s not the only metric of success).
I really was drawn to permaculture as a process. Permaculture is one of those obnoxious things that has a lot of great ideas wrapped up in a slightly annoying fan base. Permies, as they’re known, are the sort of people believe conversation is the same as action, communal approaches to everything will bear out and have a deliberately husky and soft voice. Not evil people but sometimes I just want to putter about the tomatoes without the communal living gurus spruiking shit my way.
But permaculture’s most brilliant idea is that waste doesn’t exist. Or maybe shouldn’t exist. In the context of gardening, permaculture design makes recycling central. A corn stalk is used as compost now that the corn is harvested, chickens dig through scraps to remove bugs and aerate the soil, human waste can even be broken down into manure. The less true waste (ie things leaving the garden or farm to the tip) the better.
Of course like lots of ideas it’s actually an ideal, but I think it’s a really smart one – how much waste or trash do we all produce and wouldn’t it be better if that was effortlessly actually a part of a new cycle of development or growth? When you take down a tomato plant after it’s fruit is done, you can just leave it on top of the garden bed and as it breaks down it acts as a mulch and feeds the soil.
I remember in 2011 when I was accepted into a teaching program there was a conversation I’d had with a friend maybe 1 week beforehand wherein I’d said ‘if I’d found gardening 2-3 years earlier I’d have studied Ag Sci’. Actually for a long time my ambition was to stash cash from my day job and then buy a plot of land to gradually transform into a big garden/food forest. I used to draw diagrams, plots, plans and images of different zones in the garden, companion plants, ways to optimise and just reveled in that dream.
However, now I live in Melbourne and can’t afford a garden that’s very big. Still I have some nice herbs and gorgeous flowers in my courtyard, and the occasional daydream about having an acre or two and building a big garden and then inviting friends out while I cook big meals with all the produce. It’s a great dream, but I can’t afford it. I have this really specific vision of serving ricotta I’ve made with honey I’ve harvested alongside summer fruits I’ve grown. Ah well. Maybe one day, maybe not.
Probably not.
Another idea from permaculture, well it’s probably from somewhere else but I learned about it first on a permaculture message board, is that nature doesn’t move in straight lines. If you look at a river, say, or a mountain ridge, or a swamp or anything it’s never straight (or never for very long at all). Bends and curves are inherent to all natural systems and animals.
At the moment I have to put together a long ‘leadership profile’ for my day job. Stories have this illusory quality of often being linear – start and the start, end and the end – but I don’t really feel that rings true for my life. I’ve always had a bit of a follow my nose quality, I wanted to be a Marine Biologist, then a jeweler, then a music teacher, then a farmer, then a high school teacher, then an artist. I’m probably forgetting some. I wanted to travel the world, now I want to stay in Australia. I wanted to be unattached to things, now I have a lot of art supplies. These aren’t failures or capitulations, just moving with my mood and following my nose.
I don’t know if it’s easy or reasonable to advocate for moving through life less like a road and more like a river, but I think that’s what I try to do and what I want to impart to the students who will hear this talk. The youthful ambition that abounds can be so powerful, but so to can water, which gradually smooths the stone into sand. I think that’s me - less linear, more meandering, but still getting there.