Why grow things?

 The other day someone told me that growing things (aka gardening) was my hobby.

I bristled.

This is no hobby.

This activity limits my daily engagements, my summer retreats away from my home and demands constant attention with little guarantee of success.

No person who has ever tried to grow food in Calgary, Alberta could call this a hobby.

So what is it then? 

Well, I suppose some might call it a philosophy.   I call it a responsibility.

We live in one of the most privileged places on the planet at this time and place in history.

With privilege comes responsibility

If I can live in this city and reap the benefits of that privilege then I am responsible for not over exploiting the resource.

I work towards this in many ways as a community developer:

I work to reduce ignorance and error in our community leaders and culture (the soil from which humans grow) in my volunteer engagements.

I work towards reducing waste and suffering in our local & broader communities by illuminating our collective ignorance through cultural artifacts (creating plays, stories, documentaries that we can draw on to consider more of the story)

I see community as the communities of interest and allegience as well as two primary communties that we all belong to - Life & Humanity.

Think about that for a minute - we are all human and we are all part of life on this planet.

So if I am living & working as a community developer in a privileged community that shaped the planet through it's exports of oil & gas then I have huge responsibilities to those communities.

That is why I stay in this city - a city with brutal winters and the shortest growing season in Alberta.   Because of the responsibility to do better into the future.

That is also why I am learning to grow my own food.

I, like you, live in a global economy.   I live in a city where fresh local food is scarce.   I have the economic where with all to afford trucked in produce in the fall, winter and early spring so that I can round out the local beef with some other nutrients. 

That is a path dependency that makes me very uneasy.    One day I woke up and said: that is not good enough for my soul.   I can't accept that and I must do what I can to do better.

Moving to a farm in BC is not an option because of my commitments to the broader community.   There are some of us trying to ensure that in this place on the planet we do better... we are squeeky wheels, policy influencers, general questioners and we can't leave because there is a need.


This blog is about the journey of joining the many gardeners, urban farmers, local growers around the world.

This is my commitment to you planet earth.   I will do my best to serve you