Gardeners are generally happy people. Contact with sun, soil, fresh air and plants, and participation in the everyday miracle of growing green things could account for that. We love a rainy day as much as a sunny day. We’re curious about the creatures we encounter, and forge relationships with those that help grow our gardens. Growing corn and beans, or sunflowers, or basil gives us a sense of purpose and accomplishment when we come to a harvest table full of food that started as seeds just a few months earlier. Spending time in the garden listening to the buzz of pollinators instead of the blare of the latest bad news keeps me focused on what matters. Being in the midst of all kinds of crops, herbs, flowers and foliage reminds me of the power, health, beauty and interconnectedness of diverse communities.
Gardening in community amplifies all of these benefits and adds a few more ways to help us resist the growing fascism in our nation. We share common goals to build the health of the planet in the most local way possible. We help each other by sharing seeds, plants, knowledge, labor, and time together as we work for the common good of our garden and our community. We volunteer in the garden, and in the community. We welcome the most vulnerable and marginalized members of the community, and keep an eye out for their well-being as they lose access to needed resources, or as their existence is criminalized by our own government. We share concern for the growing food insecurity in our community by growing and sharing food with food-insecure neighbors.
In my dystopian imagination, I try to picture a community garden under authoritarian rule: Management is strictly top-down, with little input from gardeners, and little regard for how plants actually grow. There is no personal choice about what to plant or how to design a plot, and there is little regard for science and nature-based practices. There is little trust among gardeners, and leaders use widespread surveillance to keep gardeners in line. Garden membership is open only to those who fit a narrow definition of a citizen. There is a long list of those who are excluded. Routine policing ensures that gardeners follow rules as designated by the state. These rules reflect state policy, but not good gardening practices. Crop failures are hushed up rather than studied for their lessons. Food insecurity is officially nonexistent, except as an opportunity to blame those excluded by the system. Gardeners’ natural love of diversity, color, and experimentation is quashed. It doesn’t sound like a happy place to be.
Hopelessness, powerlessness, fear and division are the crops that authoritarians want to grow. These cannot thrive in healthy communities, whether it’s a group of gardeners, a church, a choir, dancers, a biking club, a parents organization, a book group, or a neighborhood. Wherever we are, we can sow the seeds of community and build resistance to fascism.
Patricia James of Haydenville is a master gardener who gardens with her wife Karin at the Northampton Community Garden.