Chapter 2
Gardening for Salvation

Still, why should one plant on a doomed planet?









We decided to turn one of the many streams on our land into a watercress pond. The building engineers who surveyed our land told us that the plentiful surface and underground water is a bad omen: these are fluid forces of the soil’s unrest, indicating landslide risks and instigating slow displacements, known as “creeps.” Short of abandoning our land, they recommended we keep draining the wells, keep the streams running, and keep an eye on the land movement, especially in case of torrential rains or earthquakes. Approaching the issue in a different mood, we convert the disastrous currents into gardening aides: by inserting hoses into streams, we irrigate the vegetable plots and the greenhouse. Our bees drink from the grassy banks of the streams. Planting watercress, we figured, would be another act of salvaging, so we set aside a good spot, half-shaded, where surface water flows. The nutrient-rich, semi-aquatic plant has become a praised garnish of global foodies (the jingle you can hear across health-related websites says watercress has “more vitamin C than oranges, more iron than spinach, and more calcium than milk”). In the regional herbalist tradition, watercress, known as potočarka, is recommended as a tonic for its liver-detoxifying and stomach-strengthening properties. My project collaborator and sister Azra and I prepare a bed for it, not too far from the stream. With a hoe and a shovel, we upturn much stone: our land is nothing if not a whole mountain, ground up beneath our feet. The loam is heavy and our arms are weak. We add a decent layer from our compost pile, then a layer of soil: layering soil, as if we were making a cake. Mineral fertilizer at hand makes us pause and doubt--should we use it or not, given its industrial production and the tolls on the environment--then we finally sprinkle some of its beads, deferring a decision on the matter of environmental principles until we do further research. Next, we pepper watercress seeds onto the bed. The seeds are tiny, a bit bigger than a black pepper shaker’s grind, their color, ochre brown. The instructions on the seeds’ packet says “Do not cover,” but Azra doesn’t like the idea of leaving the seeds entirely exposed. “Can’t we sprinkle some soil at least?,” she wonders. We do so. The following day we plant another patch, this time in a bay we establish off the main stream coursing through our land. The holes we dig out with shovels fill up very quickly. I wonder what would happen if we dug out holes across our land: would the rivers below readily submerge our house and the orchard? We arrange rocks at the bottom of the new pond, then spread a layer of dirt and a layer of compost; again we add a dash of mineral fertilizer; finally, we sprinkle the seeds. Then follows another brief discussion: Azra is uncomfortable with the seeds exposed and I’d rather stick with the instructions. Her discomfort sways the argument and we settle for a compromise: we spray the finest shower of soil over the seeds and top the arrangement off with one lonely worm that had found itself displaced from the compost heap we handled while making the bed. With the watercress planted, we move to the nearby soil to prepare it for vegetable seedlings. We need to hoe it and I want to help. Azra lets me do so but keeps up with instructions along the way: when to turn the hoe on its sides and when, instead, to use its very tip, head-on, to stab and break up weeds’ roots. She shows me how to work the hoe in a straight line. I’m not exactly useless but it will take a while before I become of some help around the land. I’ve spent too much time away from the land, while an academic. I remember how our grandma used to teach me to hoe while I was little. My hands do not remember well her lessons, though I recall that I’m supposed to let the hoe swing its full course while simply, somehow, following its movement through with my body. Otherwise, grandma used to say, “you’re hoeing against yourself.”
Scything Summer, 2017.