Peas and Quiet: Urban Gardening in the Time of Covid-19
Across the US, gardeners are producing food, building community, and finding some calm during this time of uncertainty.
By Jonathan Shipley
Earth Island Journal
June 25, 2020
Excerpt:
“The gardens are helping people find peace in this uncertain time,” says Kenya Fredie, the supervisor of Seattle’s P-Patch Community Gardening Program. “We need to open our hearts and connect with the struggles of those most vulnerable.” That connection, Fredie believes, can involve carrots, corn, kale, and more. It’s a refrain heard from gardeners across the country. “I think we’ll come out of this,” notes Margee Green, the executive director of Sprout NOLA, a farmer and gardener training program based in New Orleans, “with a lot more people understanding the sacrifices that farm workers make every day and the importance of supporting agriculture that is in harmony with nature, and closer to them.”
It can be as close as an abandoned lot down the street. As close as a churchyard. As close as one’s backyard or, closer still, the kitchen sill where a few pots of herbs can grow.
Matt Schindler, of St. Louis’ Gateway Greening points to the emotional benefits as well. “It’s therapy,” he says of gardening. “Nature can relax you. Everyone is stressed out right now. Getting into the soil is a need.” Small victories, then, for growing cucumbers for a dinner salad, being able to dig up one’s own potatoes, and pluck homegrown strawberries with one’s children.
