Edition

The Garden Salvaged is not a place (although the community garden where I whittle my green thumb comes close) so much as a goal. It's a fine line separating savage from salvage, and in fact they are both rooted in  gathering, saving and recovering. Starting with this distinction, we can consider our lives as both savaged and salvagable. We are sometimes lost and things are sometimes broken--buying what's new and whole is not always an option, especially when it comes to our health, our community, our values.  The garden is what's protected, or what was once and has since been lost; it's the wild in a sea of gridded concrete or the garden is what's tame within a rambling countryside.

What does this have to do with the core topics of The Garden Salvaged, food justice and well-being? In the garden each spring, the seeds must be resown and the soil prepped. Sure, there are perennials and we can lay compost and leaf cover the fall before but renewal takes planning and work. The same is true for the values we hope to live by and the goals we hope to realize for ourselves and those around us. We must return to the basics--what we eat, where it comes from, who we share it with--in order to grow as individuals and communities: recovering our instictints, remembering what's important, creating life where there was injustice and fear. We can't get there all at once, and we may have to double back a few times, but we may find we agree on a few things and can at least enjoy the journey together.