Page 8 RAIN June/July 1983 THE POLIHCS OF WEEDS by Diane Cameron In the early 1970's, the migration of (mostly young) people to rural, farm, and wilderness areas was identified and labled by mass media as the back-to-the-land movement. To some people, it was a bold but short-lived experience; a short course in the rise and fall of civilization. It's just plain tough out there to make a go of it. Many moved back to the cities, or continue to yoyo between the city and country. But to many people, living on the land became a way of life, and out of this was spawned a far-reaching alternative agriculture movement. The alternative agriculture movement has grown by leaps and bounds over the last ten years. Knowledge about both successful and unsuccessful methods of small-scale, ecologically sound farming has been spread by communication networks such as Tilth as well as by publishing giants such as Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening. The most recent insights about appropriatefarming methods have been inspired by two complimentary farming techniques: the permaculture ideas developed by Bill Molison; and the "no-till" method espoused by Japanese farmer, Masanobu Fukuoka. The generic term for the new direction might be referred to as biological or ecological farming-^a wonderful blend of the alternative agriculture and environmental movements. It boils down to the fact that the best farming is almost non-farming. Farmers, while still performing food-producing roles, also serve as bio-regional custodians, caring and enhancing the natural landscape—the native plants and wildlife. At the same time as the back-to-the-land movement has been evolving, a complimentary movement has taken place in the city—the urban or community garden movement. While, even several years ago it was delightful enough just to see a garden in the city, now the movement is mature enough to support its oxon research and suffer the political consequences of being taken seriously. In the "Politics of Weeds," Diane Cameron describes one community's—Bloomington, Indiana—experience with urban gardening when people are confronted with ecological farming techniques. The questions raised seem both important and curiously absurd—What is a weed? What is food? How can you garden ifyou don't garden? —SJ The gardening movement in Bloomington was organized in the spring of 1981 by some members of Bloom- ingfoods, a local grocery cooperative. One goal of the cooperative had been to provide low income people with wholesome food at affordable prices, yet it had fallen short of its goal. Fresh vegetables and fruit, along with nuts, grains, and dairy products, are bought primarily from regional wholesalers. Some co-op members wanted to have locally grown, less expensive produce, and cooperative gardening looked like a practical answTe hr. e gardeners found a suitable plot in a five-acre field owned by Indiana University. The University agreed to lease the land to Bloomingfoods' parent organization, Bloomington Cooperative Services (BCS), under certain conditions. These included mowing a strip of land where the Garden bordered the road, mowing anything that was not part of a garden, and keeping the place “neat." With these provisions agreed to by the signers, Bloomington had a community garden. It was later named “Wild Grove Community Garden," after its large stand of wild garlic. Wild Grove has now gone through its second summer, and about 50 people have grown everything from fava beans to basil and hubbard squash. Edible wild plants also proliferate there, and these “weeds" have been a source of conflict between the University, the City, and the natural gardeners. Some gardeners objected to the lease's provision calling for mowing because they feel that wild plants are too valuable to mow. Weeds, in fact, form the basis for the “wild gardening" philosophy guiding many of the gardeners. Not all of the original gardeners Were against the mowing, however. Weeds, according to Dee Blair, a member of the Bloomingfoods board at the time the lease was signed, “became a point of controversy, and the garden was no longer “a cooperative, harmonious arrangement." Mike Andrews, one of the original garden organizers, was among those opposing the mowing. "The people who least wanted to cut the weeds were the ones with the strongest connections to the garden in terms of livelihood," reflected Andrews. The philosophy of the natural gardeners has been eloquently expressed in The One Straw Revolution by Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka. According to Fukuoka, the best, most natural diet is one that takes what is offered by nature, each season in turn offering its own specialties. He calls his method "do-nothing farming, where one relies on a natural balance of cultivated plants, green mulch, insects, and climate to control weeds, pests, and blight. Much of the eastern part of the garden plot had been beaten down into a virtual hardpan by bulldozers—the site had previously been a basket factory. The soil was badly eroded in places. Wild plants such as vetch, sweet clover and lambsquarters were building a new soil on
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