I went to the Sharing Garden, yet again, at the community garden for refugees-of-war in the most diverse square mile in the USA. I had created it a year and a half ago when my scheduled departure for Peace Corps Uganda as an Agribusiness Specialist (with a secondary project working with women and girls on bikes) got delayed for the sixth time due to COVID (fun fact: they recently sent me my special United States Peace Corps passport, as a memento I guess). I’ve been tending it every week via bikes, buses and trains. Everything except garlic currently appears dead from the recent cold blast.
My goal was to build new soil by decomposing wood chips and leaves, as well as using nutrient and organic-matter-dense cover crops and other organic-growing strategies, in every inch of the 81 square feet. I would then turn it over, grow-ready, to a family new to the United States so they could provide healthy, culturally-appropriate food for their families on their very own piece of land.
Yesterday was the day I put a (compostable) fork in it. It’s ready. My work is now done there (we did it, Bob).
Onward (across the USA).
Traveling at the Speed of Bike 