A Canarsie Evening by Abby (gardening helper)

This is a post from Abby who has been helping with the Canarsie garden since Isak left for grad school. Above is a picture of Abby showing a visitor around the garden.

8/21/2010

While I was weeding in the Canarsie garden on Thursday evening, the man who stopped by last week visited again. When I met him for the first time, he expressed his deep appreciation of the garden and told me, nostalgically, that he had a similar garden at his home in Ghana. He expressed his belief that growing one’s own food was much better and much more “economical” than buying it at the supermarket. On Thursday he repeated his earlier suggestion that less corn should be planted in a narrow garden lot. As Christina and I have discussed, perhaps lack of space, excess of shade, and/or the mediocre quality of the soil have hampered the growth of these corn. How strange that corn, squash, and beans are a traditional planting trio and yet the corn seem to flourish in a different environment than the squash and beans. Maybe Christina has some thoughts on this?

On Thursday, the garden was also visited by a group of four children between the ages of seven and ten; three of the four were Muslim immigrants from Yemen. Their curiosity, desire to help, and eloquent questions impressed me. They dreamed of planting their own gardens and tried very hard to remember the names of the beans. While I worked, a brother and sister described to me a beautiful home in Yemen surrounded by luscious trees and topiary. I love how an Indigenous garden can become the connecting point for so many people of different ages and nationalities.

I highly enjoyed clipping yellow leaves off the white bush scallop squash vines! Upon removal, their huge stems leak a stream of water; after they have been emptied, I found that I could blow into them and make music!