We go to the garden to find a sense of calm, to break a sweat, and to commune with other beings with whom we share this land. We go to breathe deep, and find a grounded connection. The garden provides myriad ways of somatic healing.

We can also go to the garden to mend our minds through learning! One of the first lessons I learned in the garden was how to slow down, and how to move with the flow of the seasons. That was an important step for me as I sought to disengage from the clock of capitalism, the clock that tells us that we are only as good as what we produce, and that resting is lazy. As if!

More recently, the garden has been teaching me to transform my tendency to want to control, and dominate nature. A deep teaching of American culture is that humans are separated from, and thus superior to nature, which has left me with a desire to control. I want to be able to allow space for all life to thrive, and to do that I must de-colonize my mind.

I have been allowing wild, spontaneous plants to live in my garden. I am not doing what the overwhelming majority of guidebooks say, and weeding them out. The garden tells me there is space. The garden shows me how wild plants can benefit my garden while fitting seamlessly in to the planting plan. The garden teaches me the value of all life, and urges me to re-examine my ideas on beauty.

By selectively weeding on a plant by plant basis, I can:

• Increase plant diversity! Which means: more food + shelter for pollinators, and more food for me and my fam!

• Provide alternate hosts for garden pests, so they don’t come chomping on my babies

• Create less work for myself!

• Create more time and space to relax in the garden!

I have really been struggling lately with the difference between stewardship and control. How much control is too much? Where does stewardship begin to blend into control territory? And how can I maintain a balance between a cultivated garden and an unruly tangle of plants?

I know the balance will come, and in the meantime, I watch the whole garden fade into winter.