As we move into late November, the Farm is definitely transitioning from a warm season palette into a winter weaving of cooler season crops. Lettuces, peas, kales, and collards are replacing tomatoes, corn, squashes and eggplants. Interns and volunteers alike, are cultivating beautifully raised beds amended with dark compost and raked into gorgeous chocolate mounds that look good enough to eat! The care of our city soil is central here at the Farm, as we nourish the living medium that will give life to the food we grow.
Many passersby were sad to no longer see the yellow and green architecture of maize that stood "as high as an elephant's eye" and asked in desperation, "Did you get to harvest much of the corn?" "Was it any good?" We reassured them that the corn was indeed harvested, and deliciously enjoyed--and that it was time to clear the area for salad and cooking greens. One thing about gardens is that change is the only constant. And as Wendy Johnson has written in her beautiful book, Gardening at the Dragon's Gate--"Alan Chadwick said that 'the entire garden is pulsation, pulsation and a huge zest for change.'--and gardeners respond to this swell and ebb in the natural world because our lives and our very bodies are intertwined with light and dark and with the tendrils and leaves, flower petals and ruddy roots of the plants we love to tend."
The idea of 'change' is so much in the air these days--with a new president elect, a tanking economy, and a climate that seems to be trying to tell us something if we would only listen. How can farms, gardens, and the folks who tend them help be a part of the good changes that need to happen in our city? Of course, the list is endless. We know we're on the right side of history. But there is even more reason to hope now, with a president who could support a sustainable vision that would include the possibility of a Green New Deal.
One of my favorite activiists these days is Van Jones, founder of the "Green for All" campaign that's working to "build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty." As I was reading his most recent article in this month's edition of The Nation, I was struck by how well the City College Urban Farm fit into his vision of joining civil society with green business to better our place in the world. He goes on to say: "We can take the unfinished business of America on questions of inclusion and equal opportunity and combine it with the new business of building a green economy, thereby healing the country on two fronts and redeeming the soul of the nation." How do we create a program at City College that takes both Ecology and Social Justice into consideration? Entrepreneurship and Activism? Personal Change and Community Change? Like Van Jones, I believe that the time is ripe for a Green New deal, and am certain that food and farming will be central to that vision for participatory democracy.
We vote with our fork every day--and when we're able to learn how to grow our own food, we inherit an even broader invitation into what it might mean to be a citizen of this planet, caring for the soil, and recreating a social change agenda that empowers everyone to be stewards of this beautiful and wise green earth, our home.
As we harvest yet another amazing salad from an assortment of greens and beans growing just beyond the metal railing, a Monarch butterfly dips down among the milkweed and Mexican sunflowers daring anyone to disprove that this urban place is not alive with the winds of change.
