EARTHDAY B.U.G.S

Earth Day at the Garden was great. The day began at about 9am as the Head Start School across the street brought about 60+ kids over in waves about 20 or so. Suzi gave them all a tour of the garden and had them all plant their own Organic bean plant. I got there after teaching my morning Yoga class to see the last of the groups move through. As I tinkered with my little corn buddies I watched Suze do her magic with the kids. Silke Besosa who is an accomplished Organic farmer here in Puerto Rico was visiting which was great as I got to ask her a bunch of questions that had come up. She is Suzi's good friend and a staunch allie of the Garden. Laura Dean was also among the visitors. She is the widow of the famous Puertorican sculptor Lindsey Dean who's work is all over Puerto Rico.When she saw my attempts to patch together some bamboo matting along the fence donated a 100 feet of new high quality bamboo fencing that shes had stored for a while. Later that afternoon about ten or so local moms came by with their kids to the Garden. They brought popcorn and organic chocolate chip cookies and drinks and suzi made ants on a log for the kids. I love the Idea of the Garden as being a kid friendly spot where moms can bring the kids. Not a lot of kid friendly places for moms( the true heart of any community) to come together. It becomes a community gathering point, like an Indian village well or something. All these ladies seemed inspired and had good ideas to share. All the kids were happy and had a good time. One of the kids felt it was the thing to do to run up and down on top of the newly planted rows of lettuce. Which leaves you with the choice to have a heart attack or view it as the Tibetan monk does when he finishes an elaborate colored sand mandala, then brushes it away. My best time is to sit with kids and draw on the cement with chalk. Hopefully the kids want to draw and not want you to watch them draw which is a whole other game and not my favorite. I drew a sun and water to which one mom drew pink fish and an anatomically correct shark. I drew my Hopi Pink Corn and a slew of flowers. After the moms left and the cement was sufficiently kid-a-fied I watered my corn barefoot which was tremendously therapeutic in ways I can't describe. As I thought things were over A drummer friend Rafa Maya And his student and singer Grego came to practice with their drums. Eric was there and lite a big fire and Suzie made an extra round of ants on a log for everyone. ( Celery peanut butter and a sprinkling of raisins.) The fire, The smell of smoke and the subtlety of the drums put me into an altered state quickly. We sang a slew of traditional songs and a strange woman came to the gate and let herself in and sat near the fire with Eric. She was a Bruja in my mind. A spirit. Ive seen them before. We sang and laughed and that brought Earth Day to a nice close.

JEEVAN THE CORN MAN

We made a massive organic seed order from a color catalog. Suzie was like a kid in a candy store as she has never met a vegi or herb she didn't like. The catalog intro stated that all the seed strains had been tested to see if any of them were genetically modified. They were all clean. I didn't know this but Monsanto which is a multinational seed and grain products conglomerate has modified and patented seed strains so that if your grain is tested and found to have similar characteristics they can sue your farm. And with cross pollination the inevitability of this happening is becoming greater and greater. Anyway, the catalog is awesome and full of crazy vegis. A bunch of different types of tomatoes and beets and chards and kales; weird and fun variations. I have a thing for corn which some people know. So I ordered a sweet corn and one called Hopi Pink corn which is a good flour corn. The plot I chose for this gets full all day sun. I went through the soil a few weeks back and turned it to about a foot depth, removing all the large rocks and debris. Next I sifted the soil with a 1/2 inch sifter to remove smaller stones etc. I took 3 barrel loads of the refined compost and turned it into the soil bed and raked it flat. The base soil/sand was a lite brown but adding the deep rich compost turned the soil a nice deeper shade. I plan to when this crop is in to turn all the rows under enriching the soil even more. So over time the Earth in that plot will become richer and fuller. Next I layed down nice fat consistent rows of refined compost soil enriched further with the aged chicken manure. Then I lightly dusted again with the manure and broke open the seed pack with the pink corn seeds. They are indeed pink. I planted 2 to each 2 inch deep hole, separating each hole by a foot. Next I companion planted marigolds and zinnias at the ends of each row as these plants ward off bugs. A woman walked by as I was planting and said something like: "Looks great, and when they grow I'm going to come back and hop the fence." she was joking but you can see what her impulse was before she turned it into a joke. Barbed wire is definitely next on the list.

THE MID-WIFE TO AN IDEA

To me the garden is all about giving unconditionally. It's not about the awesome Organic vegis that will most definitely come our way. I feel that this is a unique blessing and opportunity to learn the art of gardening. To commune with earth. I see people all wanting their own plot and it seems to me that the garden should not be a place for people to come to take but the sacred place where people come to offer. People are attracted to the garden like magic. Their all so excited about it to the soul level. Then they get in and they want to make their own little garden for themselfs, I just think its wrong thinking. They slip into default take mode, a shade of selfish thinking. The Garden is not a plot rental to my thinking. It is a communal gardening space where we all share the bounty. It is a magical thing to need something and have that very thing appear. Wheather it be wood or compost or the very garden itself. What does not sit well with me is to see people feel entitled to take liberties with these resources without saying word one to anyone. Just taking compost or manure or wood for private use. Or demanding a plot for themselfs. It's just the crappy small mindedness that is at its core Anti-Garden.
The help flooding into the garden is amazing. All different types of people offering all types of capacities to the effort. With all these people comes alot of concepts of what the Garden should be. Some of these ideas are like descovering a new facet to a jewel. Some are just dust from the world that people track in. I am firmiliar with and have been around the concepts of selflessness and gratitude and self offering most of my life. They are not even second nature to me, they are my nature. For most it is the opposite and selflessness, self giving and gratitude are a currency from another world. It is with this very perspective the true form of the Garden can be seen and understood, I think. It is along the lines of this consciousness, Holding this consciousness and indeed teaching this consciousness that the magic of it will unlock and unfold great things. So it was nice, when I expressed these thoughts to Big Boss Fairbanks last night and she fully agreed.

CALLE BUCARE & CALLE LAUREL

Right on the corner of Bucare' St. and Laurel St. is where the Idea was made manifest. The lot is about 10,000 sq feet with a modest and seriously neglected house in the center. The first concern was the soil status. It is 90 percent sand as it is a only a few blocks to the sea. So obviously it has to be enriched. Also with all the construction fill needed to make the land stable and not knowing who sprayed what on the property over the years the soil needed to be tested for possible contaminants. Suzi took small samples of earth from all around the plot and sent it to a lab in the states for a thourough evaluation. The process could be done in San Juan but due to the slow motion island buracracy factor the choice was for the states. As the enrichment process would mean compost, we all began to save our kitchen waste as well as go on compost raids getting local lawn clippings and such. About this time Suzi bought everyone a book called: "The Square foot Gardener." True to the Fairbank sense of asthetics she wanted to plant the garden intelligently. I began to measure the land and different plots to come up with a blue print. Suzi with her seemingly infinite contacts met a Senior Febras who heads the grounds maintenance of the University of Puerto Rico. He told us that the University was mandated to begin composting all green waste a few years ago an subsequently had tons and tons of prime compost. Senior Febras loved the garden Idea and offered us as much as we could use. Mean while Silke Besosa an organic farmer here in Puerto Rico and advisor to our garden had given us a tip about an old chicken farm that had tons and tons of chicken manure up in the rain forest. Manolo and Eric who are devoted B.U.G.s came back with 500 lbs of the rich stuff. The University compost needed a bit of sifting to remove the bits of garbage and Iguana eggs ( which are numerous). The result is some pretty turbo charged soil! The Idea of enriching the barren soil to me is somehow enchanting and most meaningful. I can almost feel the Earth Mother smile. Suzi knowing my love for corn and Bees designated a plot. The plot is 8'x15' and gets all day sun that runs in a perfect arch over the front of the house and my plot for Corn. I began by turning the sandy soil over to the depth of about a foot. I removed a few barrel loads of it to bring it to a nice level below the surrounding cement line. I then began sifting the sandy soil to remove all larger rocks and construction fill and garbage of which there was plenty. the soil became very soft and smooth and I went through it again with a metal rake to even the plot out. I shoveled two barrel loads of the turbo soil "composta" and raked it in with a tenderness and a fertility prayer to the mother. This will give the plot a heathy base on which to lay rows for planting of a 2 to 1 compost to soil mixture.

SUZI'S VISION

I had recently gone on a trip with my sister to a animal shelter in Aracibo and on the drive I was amazed at all the rich open land that was not being used and seemed to be being slowly developed. It had obviously been cane fields judging from the derelict smoke stacks used for sugar refinement that seemed to randomly appear. Prime flat beautiful healthy land. And after seeing the appalling quality and limited types of Vegetables offered in most stores in San Juan ( not to mention the crazy prices ) It just didn't seem to make sense. The central coast section of California where I am from seems somewhat limited in size but its veggies can be found all across the U.S. and even here. Something seemed wrong. So after class one day I asked Suzie about it and her brow furrowed up like a freshly tilled field. " Puertoricans don't farm. " An alarming conversation followed as I learned the horrible and I must say dangerous policy this proud island has around growing its own food. They don't. I also learned from Suzi the statistics surrounding the Puertorican diet. Appallingly low in fresh food consumption and high in consumption of fast food and packaged processed food. In short- Not good! Not only as I have seen in California with the Mexican population with fast food consumption and the diabetes epidemic but also the Political Stupidity of a nation not growing it's own food. Clearly not a policy that is at all concerned with the welfare of its people. I have always understood that a governments job is to safeguard its people. Clearly this isn't happening. And clearly either Puerto Rico wants to remain a dependent, or, it is in the financial best interest of the political machinery that it remains so. Traveling "tassel to purse" as the British use to say about their colonies. Wow, I'm starting to sounding like Che!- veggies to the People!
Any way Suzi told me an inspiration that had come to her recently about finding an empty lot ( of which there are many ) in the neighborhood and starting a garden on it. As I had often had the same thought and after the inspirational effect of Kasalta coffee con leche had hit our synapses we decided to cruse the hood to look for empty lots. we found a few lots but most turned out to be dead ends. But Suzi was undaunted and within a few days a neighbor down the street who had a derelict property and loved the idea turned over the keys. the game was on!

IN THE BEGINNING WAS A FAIRBANK

I arrived in Puerto Rico from the ashes of my life in California. After a long 13 hour flight of bad food, tight seats and air conditioning the doors of San Juan International airport swung open to my new life. The balmy warm tropical blast of night air was a resounding "Yes" to my body and Psyche. My sis, Elizabeth Kracht and her man Pinak Diaz-Martin had offered me an unconditional ( albeit a bit boney)couch and support. I had seen the local Yoga studio (It's Yoga) in the Ocean Park area where I now lived on my last visit. I soon was teaching a few morning classes at the sweet little space.
Suzan Fairbank is a tall drink of water with the bad habit ( like all 16 year olds ) of slouching. But that did not hide the effect that years of ballet had had on her body and its development. When Suzi walked into my class one morning I recognized her from an animal rescue lecture at the Caribbe Hilton. My sisters Animal Rescue non- profit : "Amigos de los Animales" had put on the lecture and I had been introduced to her by my sister. Actually I had been introduced to the thousand year old Peruvian crystal frog pendant that Suzi had been wearing around her neck.
The classes were sparse in the beginning as they always are. As Suzi was determined to do her Yoga she came regularly and we soon became good friends. I have learned since that she is 3rd generation Puertorican that her grand dad had been tapped to be Governor of Puerto Rico but declined and had been responsible for a great part of the Reconstruction done in Puerto Rico in the 1930's -50's. Her dad was a master ship builder having built over 35 ships from scratch. Suzi herself as I would later learn has been quite a feminist ground breaker having held many successive jobs through her career that had been reserved for men in her field. Suzie is simply a foodie. She is a chef and event organizer and is known for her lavish dinner parties. She is an amazingly accomplished food travel writer and wine connoisseur, having traveled extensively to Europe and abroad. An herbal healer as well, versed in the healing properties of plants and herbs and healing remedies. Suzi is also into everything green. She is a charter member of th U.S. Green building Counsel and an ardent supporter of organic and sustainable farming here in Puerto Rico. I could go on but you get the point.