salad days

I was a little late planting lettuce this year, so although we have plentiful kale, tatsoi, red and green mustards, we have only a few tiny mild lettuces to balance out these flavorful greens.

But on this warm day, everyone in the after school program wanted to make a salad. So we cut our greens, added plenty of the chickweed that grows happily among the salad mix (and out of the worm bin in the photo), added garlic, olive oil, a few easter egg radishes soaked in apple cider vinegar, and some goddess dressing. Oh yes, and don't forget soy sauce.

No one missed the lettuce. After scraping out the last leaves, they ran out to harvest more and do it all over again, ignoring the cranberry squash muffins on the table that we had just made with one of the last squashes of the season.

This group has been coming to the garden for a few years, and were in fact the ones that sowed the seeds for the greens they harvested today back in October. They can also find the chickweed, wood sorrel, and a couple other choice wild edibles when garden greens are scarce, or when they want to feed the chickens. Some among them have chosen coming to the garden over going to the mall. They've named the chickens and know where their crops are growing and what's ready to harvest.

Few of us belong to a geographical place anymore. We are so easily uprooted, moving for jobs, family, or just a change of scenery. Though this is supposed to be a community garden that belongs to the gardeners, more often than not, the gardeners end up belonging to the garden, an intimate artistry in which we shape and are shaped by a place.

As today's after school group explores the garden, naming its nooks and crannies, tasting its offerings, their experiences here change the way they see the world. Once they know what chickweed is, they begin to find it everywhere, not just where they met it. The world comes alive in a different way. Becoming more deeply rooted in one place, our branches reach farther.