My Mum's Garden
If she could start over again, my mum might have been a farmer. She has strong ties to the land but when she was young, farming wasn’t an option. During the fascist regime that ruled Spain for over three decades, most women didn’t have much of a say. Through the years, she converted her garden completely to organic, ignoring the prophets of doom who forecasted poor harvests because of it. She no longer tends a garden, she is the guardian of a tiny ecosystem.
At my mum's garden there is a long table. Before the pandemic, there was always someone turning up unannounced. My mum's garden is the garden of us all. And it is the best inspiration because through it she has taught us, the younger generation, that fighting for the environment is worth it.
“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.”
*Quote by Wendell Berry