Finding Truly Common Ground Cultivating a garden, Cultivating Community by hillarY ZuNiN “I have never had so many good ideas work if you ever expect to see something grow.As CanDo cultivates community, our process involves all of these day after day as when I worked in the preparatory steps. Ideas come from CanDo volunteers, other community garden.” overheard at the market. We talk them through and research with care.members, newspaper articles, social media, and snatches of conversation —John Erskine, American Educator We communicate with other service groups, civic leaders, businesses and stakeholders who might be impacted by the initiative. We help make Ioverflowing. Tomatoes decorate all concerned so that consensus builds. Maybe there isn’t enough interestBut if, with all this work, the idea just doesn’t feel right, nothing is lost.connections. And always, in all ways, we strive to listen, learn, and educatet’s harvest. Along with the heady fragrance of grapes on the vine andthe drunken buzz of bees, gardens throughout the valley are filled to plots like holiday ornaments. Glossy or it seems too vast a project, or we eggplant hang heavy. Peppers, beans learn that the idea is already being and greens of all colors jockey for addressed. None of us wants to attention. And the zucchini, well, apply our energies towards projects the zucchini have taken over – again. that are duplicative. Maybe we It seems to be their raison d’être. simply need to support the folks Gardeners know that little of who are getting the job done by this happens by accident. The hard assisting with volunteers or PR. work of the past winter and spring The process of coming to such a led to this rich harvest. Rainy conclusion is community building day reading about seed varieties, in itself. Perhaps another time will then ordering just the right ones. be more propitious. At CanDo we Studying planting options. Talking say that we’re putting such an idea with fellow gardeners over colorful back into our “seed catalog,” the catalogs and steaming cups of tea. place for good ideas whose time has Composting, worming, tilling the not yet come. soil. Weeding, watering, researching All this tilling of the ground has ways to cope with pests. helped direct CanDo’s efforts and So where does this notion of given our projects the very best cultivating community come in? It’s chance at success. That’s been true simple. As it is with gardens, so it whether we’re collecting thousands is with ideas. When your aim is to of pairs of shoes, raising money cultivate community, there’s much for the Food Bank, or writing our work to be done if those ideas are to weekly Napa Valley Register column come to fruition. “Neighbor2Neighbor” highlighting Ideas are like seeds. No matter the efforts of area non-profits. It’s how beautifully conceived, in- how we operated in organizing novative, attractively packaged, “Better Bag Month” and are they will never amount to much following with efforts to help make unless gardeners (read: community valley residents more aware of the activists) are prepared to do the work. Many of us have attended meetings inherent problems with the overuse where there’s lots of enlivening talk, but little or no action. You end up of plastics. scratching your head, thinking, “Where is this taking us?” And at harvest, when the seeds That’s like musing over seed packets at Van Winden’s, taking home a or ideas have ripened, everyone gets promising new variety, and then tucking it away in your desk drawer to to partake of the harvest. A happy languish through the summer. You’ve got to be committed to the prep Thanksgiving indeed. 52 w w w. n A PA V A L L E Y L I F E m A g A z I n E . c o m
NVLife_SeptOct_2012
To see the actual publication please follow the link above