Woman Story: Untitled 7 Artist: Emily van Lidth de Jeude
I once installed a show called Woman Story here in my home community. The core of Woman Story is a series of 24 portraits of bald, naked women drawn with graphite, crayon and acrylic wash onto reclaimed panels from my own home. They're actively expressing a complex array of experiences that inform woman-ness, but anonymously, because each of our stories might belong to any one of us.
At some point, a local I know distantly ‒ a retired judge and art collector ‒ came in to the gallery and sat down on the bench near the door. He stayed for about forty minutes. I eventually went to sit with him, and asked him what he thought of the show.
"Oh, I'm not here for the show." He answered. "I'm waiting for my ride."
"Ah. I see." What was I supposed to say next?
But he continued. "Is this your work?" He asked, bluntly.
"Yes."
"Well it's awful. An insult to women."
Woman Story: Untitled 18 Artist: Emily van Lidth de Jeude
I was completely shocked, but also curious, and asked, "Why do you feel that way?"
"They're bald," he answered, point blank. "Why would you be so disrespectful to women?"
"I drew them without hair in order to make them anonymous; to remove an identifier, and so their hairstyle doesn't speak to any potential prejudice or assumptions we make about people's hairstyle choices. But also to make their stories about everywoman."
He never once looked at me while he spoke. "They look like the bodies that came out of Buchenwald," he said. And then he was silent. And soon afterwards, his ride came.
Obviously, I could see his point. And, despite feeling regretful about possibly triggering trauma in people (my family definitely also carries trauma from WWII), I feel like maybe it's not a bad thing to have made this connection in my work. Because in war, women are also casualties. Women are also contributing to and leading both the offensive and the underground support systems. Women did come out of Buchenwald, dead. And women are found in shallow graves, abandoned vehicles, hospitals and landfills all over this world. It truly is awful, and I guess that's why I feel it needs to be told.
Here we are on the brink (or over the brink?) of WWIII, at the same time as we're experiencing a rise in femicide, exploitation, abuse and violence against women. It's not a coincidence. In our greed-based apathy we have allowed a very small handful of men to own and control our world. Most obviously, that's not acceptable! And what do strong women do when a situation is not acceptable? We make change. Women all over the world are protecting the vulnerable and building systems for survival, protection, and recovery, even as the war is only getting started.
Generally speaking, women are fully half of the world's population that knows from a deep generational place what exploitation, vulnerability and violence looks like ‒ and how to both survive and heal it. We're working throughout our communities, already, to build peace and resilience; to educate, support, and empower. Even to empower the women who foolishly allowed their fear to make them hate. We're working to bring and keep people together.
Woman Story: Untitled 16 Artist: Emily van Lidth de Jeude
We cannot rest. As born survivors, it's our strength and duty to not become bald bodies in concentration camps, mass graves, or landfills; to make sure our sisters, brothers, and children are also safe. To de-escalate fear and reactionary hatred before it harms us. A lot of us are already experienced with this. The rest of us can learn. We have to deal with our own crap and become our best selves, in order to show up for our world. And we have to start now.
There's work to do! I'm not talking about just directly protecting and defending, although there's a need for that, as well. I'm talking about building the world we need, so that it displaces the world of hate and greed that is being fed right now. And there are infinite ways we can do this. Some of us are out putting our bodies and voices on the line; putting ourselves in danger to inform and advocate. Some are donating money, time or skills to organizations that amplify our voices and work. Some of us are building networks and repositories for the protection of people, environment, information, culture, and as a whole, the future of our world. Some are educating and supporting our communities, so that we can have and maintain peace. And all of us, no matter what our lives look like or how limited we feel, can make conscious choices in every act we make to defy and devalue hatred, to promote love and peace, and to pull away from systems, corporations and ideologies that promote hatred.
Even when we feel weak, we can be strong. We are all challenged; women and men, too. That doesn't mean we're beaten. A challenge is, by definition, an opportunity to overcome. That's not just where we're at right now; it's who we are.
We are strong. We are capable. We are determined. We can do this.
The idea of homesteading or growing food is enjoying some increased popularity at the moment, supposedly because it’s rewarding, both from a human-connection standpoint as well as ethically/morally, with regards to climate change and ecological preservation. Also, of course, once you’ve become accustomed to the deliciousness of homegrown fresh foods, it can be hard to return to the comparatively dull stuff from grocery stores that has sat waiting for ages, and usually was farmed extractively. That stuff is empty of nutrients and joy! And with the rise of fascism (and fascist destruction of trade, farming, research and prosperity), I think we’ll soon have many more reasons to grow and preserve our own foods.
I grew up in a homesteading family, so it wasn't difficult for me to tumble back into this rewarding life, as an adult with children. But, especially for people who are new to it, I know homesteading (or even just growing a little food) can seem really, really daunting. I keep seeing videos of homesteaders and food farmers “giving up”–either because they faced too many disappointments, or because other adventures called to them. If you’re one of those people who wants to grow food but has been put off by all the discouraging news out there, I’m writing this for you! I want to help you avoid some of the most common pitfalls, and find some serious hope and joy from growing food. The thing is, many of those homestead failures didn’t have to be failures. These people lacked a few of the basic ingredients for homesteading. I’ll talk about those ingredients in a minute. But first… the biggest deterrent to people growing food is lack of land, time or money. So let’s deal with those first.
I have no land! OK. So you’re like most people. That’s OK! You can still grow food. The most obvious solution is to grow plants on a balcony or window. You can totally buy some expensive little gadgets like grow lights to help you with this, but it’s not even necessary. Just choose plants that don’t need a lot of light or space. The simplest is sprouts. Given two square feet of counter space, you can grow a huge variety of incredibly nutritious sprouts.
Easiest: Bean Sprouts Buy the cheapest beans you want (whatever type you like but mung beans grow fast, so are great starters!). Soak a cup (or two if you have a big family) in at least twice as much water, overnight. Then strain them, rinse them, and spread them onto a baking tray lined with a woven cotton dish cloth (or whatever piece of fabric). Rinse them once or twice a day.
When you see them start to split, or little tiny points appear, they’re ready to eat! You can let them go a bit longer if you want to have a bit of a crunchy sprout. They’ll be delicious cooked like regular beans (and much more easily digestible), but can also be marinated for bean salad, or eaten fresh.
Almost as Easy: Pea or Sunflower Shoots Buy whole peas or sunflower seeds (for planting; not packaged for eating!) Soak them overnight in a bowl of water, and then lay them on a planting tray full of soil. They barely need any soil, and can literally be dumped in a heap, or in dense rows. Put the tray on a windowsill, as they do need some light when they green up.
When it’s mild weather, they can also be planted outside, in this way. Simply wait for them to shoot up about 4-6 inches, and then snip them off with scissors. The peas will actually continue to grow and can be harvested a few more times.
When they’re spent, throw the remaining roots and stubs into your compost. The peas especially are amazing nitrogen fixers, and can even just be dug into the soil to feed whatever you grow there, next.
Alfalfa Sprouts(or clover, fenugreek, mustard, etc.) This takes a tiny bit more time every day than the other two, but they’re SO delicious. I do recommend buying seeds intended for sprouting, here.
Prepare a wide-mouth canning jar (at least a pint or a litre or so), by cutting a piece of sturdy mesh that can be placed over the top and held in place by a canning ring. You can buy sprouting-screens for such jars, but it’s totally unnecessary.
Put 1 to 2 tbsp of seeds in the bottom of the jar, add some water, then the mesh and ring on top, and allow to soak for at least a few hours, or overnight. Then strain the water out through the mesh. Fill with fresh water, swirl around, and strain again. Leave the jar sitting open side down in a shallow bowl or on a (clean) dish rack. The seeds should be sitting against the mesh in the bottom corner of the jar, but not fully covering it. Repeat this rinse-swirl-strain process three times a day until your sprouts are starting to green up (tiny leaves will be developing at the end of the long stems). Then rinse and enjoy them!
Other than Sprouts: Small and Borrowed Spaces So, obviously, sprouts are not the only thing you can grow on a counter. Buy or make planters out of whatever containers you like, and experiment away! Lots of people grow herbs inside, but veggies are possible too!
And if you have a balcony, even more is possible. I used to grow all kinds of veggies on my 3x8ft balcony in Vancouver, Canada. I had a screen of beans on one side (for shade as well as harvesting), squash growing along the railing (I had to hang little hammocks to hold the fruits as they got heavy), all kinds of herbs and heat-loving veggies, as well as a couple of tomatoes, and a 1x1m mini-lawn for my cats to roll on. We were very happy.
Of course, if you don’t have a balcony or windowsill at all, or just would like to grow much more than that, you may be able to work somebody else’s land. This relates to community-building, which I’ll talk about in a bit, for obvious reasons. But an increasing number of people are willing to allow others to grow food in their otherwise-unused yards, especially if they also get to enjoy the produce. Community gardens are another such non-homeowner option.
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I have no time! This is such an unfortunate reality for the majority, these days. Especially for those with kids or low-paying multi-jobs. Obviously, there are some things you can do (like sprouts, above) that can still be do-able, given enough forethought (and maybe a reminder to rinse and eat them!) But if you want to grow more than just sprouts, a mind-shift might be necessary.
For us, the pandemic gave us a reason to let go of kids’ activities and start a proper garden (after a few years of development, our kids have now moved out, and we grow most of our own food on less than 1/4 acre). A garden (or balcony planters) can take as little as a handful of hours per week, in the busiest growing season. And obviously, the more you grow, the more land you utilize, and the more variety you grow, the more time you’ll need. But I do have a few time-saving ideas:
No-Till Regenerative Gardening I won’t go into detail, here, but I’d highly recommend watching a few YouTube/etc. videos about it. This is what we’ve been doing. At it’s core, it’s about feeding the soil and working with the ecology you have, instead of stripping it. This involves allowing some weeds to grow where they want, allowing the soil layers to remain in-tact by not ploughing, tilling, or weeding too aggressively, and watching which plants grow best where, to allow the garden to evolve in the way that works best for the plants you’re trying to grow. A lot of “allowing.” But… the more we “allow” things to grow as they need to, the less work we have to do in fighting them.
Grow Fruit Trees! Fruit trees do need to be pruned at least once a year (twice can be better for some), and they’d benefit from some thoughtful planting and maintenance of the ground around them, but on the whole they can produce a lot of food for very little effort. The same is true of many perennial plants, including berry shrubs, asparagus, Jerusalem artichoke, and many others.
Be a Lazy Gardener Some things really do need to be done, in the garden: adding compost in early spring, seeding (maybe even starting seeds indoors if you’re in a changeable climate place like I am), and pulling out weeds and veggies that outcompete others. But a pristine and orderly garden is not even a happy garden! Plants LOVE to be mixed up. Most also love to be left alone to grow! Gardening may not even take as much time as you think it will.
Call in the Insects Insects are generous garden helpers. They pollinate, of course, but when we ensure a great diversity of insects (and insect species), they balance their own populations, keeping invading hordes of veggie-demolishing insects to a minimum. The greater diversity of insects we have, the fewer issues we’ll have from destructive insects. And they work for free! Well… almost. You have to pay them with flowers. Add a bunch of different types of flowers to attract insects. Clumps of marigolds, asters, violets, sweet peas—even perennials like rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs if that suits your fancy! Whatever is easy to grow, and makes you happy. Clovers are not only excellent insect-attractors, but also, being related to peas and beans, put much-needed nitrogen into the soil. They do take a bit of pulling-back, though, as they can easily grow into a bed and take over. I grow low-growing clovers between raised beds, and mulch the extras into my compost, as well.
Plant a No-Mow Lawn Mowing lawns is not only a scourge on our air quality, but it's also a massive waste of time! We replaced our lawn with a low-growing no-mow lawn of sedges, small daisies and other flowers, and low-growing pink clovers. I never mow, anymore, and my lawn stays lush and green all summer!
Plant Thoughtfully Check out useful companion plants for the veggies you choose, so that everything you grow can thrive. Always research, to understand the needs of your plants and the kind of plant community they enjoy. This will also help you diversify and create a garden that sustains itself, with little management needed from you.
Share Your Yard If you have a yard, and a desire to eat homegrown food, but no time to grow it, consider allowing someone else to garden in your yard! Set some ground-rules, especially with regard to bylaws, invasive plants, and access, but then give as much freedom as possible to the person or people using your land. Trust them to make good decisions, and put your effort into building a relationship with them. You’re building a community. 💚
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I Have No Money! So… this is an increasing majority of people. And probably the hardest obstacle to overcome. I’ve been passionate about growing at least a little of my own food since I left home at 18, so I have learned a few basic cost-saving tricks along the way.
Save seeds A LOT of veggies are just plain easy to save seeds from. The biggest issue you’ll have is cross-pollination, so plant just one type of each thing every year (like one type of bean, one type of pea, one type of lettuce, etc. etc.) That will save you accidentally creating useless hybrids. In most climates, the most commonly-grown veggies (and tomatoes and cucumbers and squashes) are easy to save seeds from. YouTube, again, will help you out with the specifics.
Don’t waste money! There’s a massive industry out there making money off new gardeners who don’t know there are cheaper options. From grow-towers to veggie-starts to chemical fertilizers, there is an infinite list of things you don’t need. What you really do need is this:
Good Soil: You can buy it bagged if you’re growing indoors or on a balcony, but if you have land to grow on, get it delivered in bulk, or better yet, amend the soil you already have.
Compost: Buy a little, the first year, and start making your own (unless you’re composting inside, a good old compost heap, caged to keep out rodents, is your best bet—feed it constantly!)
Mulch to Keep Down Weeds: newspapers for small spaces, or arborists’ chips for larger plots. See https://getchipdrop.com/
Seeds: share with your community! Look for seed libraries, and talk to your neighbours. You don’t need to buy from seed growers, but if you do, just a few is enough.
Gloves: (Only if you’re dealing with weeds like blackberries.)
A Shovel: A small trowel is fine unless you have a large plot; then you’ll also want a spade.
Pots: Whether big pots for balcony growing or smaller pots and trays for windowsill growing or seed-starting, these should be free. There are SO many people throwing away their used nursery pots every year. Ask your gardening neighbours, or check your local recycling depot.
Garden in Community The more people share the costs and the labour, the easier and cheaper gardening becomes. Not to mention more enjoyable, more fruitful, and with bigger harvests, since everyone learns from each other.
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Ingredients for Success OK, so I mentioned the basic ingredients for happy homesteading. I meant that in the same way the main ingredient in Mama’s cornbread is love. It really is—it was for my Mama, and now I’m the Mama I know what that means!! And it’s the same with gardening. The ingredients are love, commitment, and patience. Just like raising children! And baking. 🙂
I’m truly not just being poetic. Here’s what I mean:
Love You have to LOVE this. Deeply. If you’re growing food because you think you should, or because someone else told you to, it’s going to be a slog. But if you have good reasons for doing it, it veers into the realm of love, and then you’ll weather all the storms. Some good reasons I and other successful gardeners have are because it brings us enormous joy, because it gives us wonderful food, and because it makes us feel we’re doing something to improve our world. What is your reason to love growing food? Maybe you don’t have one yet. You can start with just purpose, and given commitment and patience, love will grow.
Commitment It’s not going to be a breeze. Growing food is a constant learning curve. Especially if you’re going the regenerative route, but shopping at stores that constantly try to sell you harmful industrial-farming products. You’ll use them and they’ll damage your soil or set back your progress and you’ll lose faith. And even if you really commit to regenerative farming, you’re going to have failures, because that’s simply how ecology works. It’s a balance that’s eked from an infinite complex diversity and many failures. But we commit to that—the complex diversity—and we weather the storms, and find solutions, and really… we grow into it.
Look at the word commit. It begins with bring together (co). Like community, coworker, etc. Commitment is about coming together not only with other people, but also with the task at hand. And in this case, that’s creating and nurturing a harmonious ecology that will produce food for us to eat. In other words, it’s about making ourselves co-participants in our ecology. That realization, alone, will make gardening easier and more successful. It’s not a project you’re overseeing; it’s a community of plants, insects, minerals, and weather that you’re a part of.
Oh… and quitting? You can’t quit. You’re not co- anything, if you quit. So grow a pair of potatoes and keep at it.
Patience It will take years to have any kind of garden feeling whole. That’s because it has to go through many cycles (a year is a cycle) just for the soil nutrients to find an equilibrium, and from that basis, the diverse ecology of the plants, insects and animals. And it also just takes a few seasons for you to get to know all your co-ecosystem-inhabitants.
I’ve seen multiple homesteading “influencers” give up after a year or two. That’s like putting your toes into the opening of a shoe and declaring it doesn’t fit. No. You have to put it on, lace it up, and then walk around in it. And even then, you probably have to wear it for a few weeks or months before it really feels great. It’s the same with gardening. So… find a reason to love it, commit to it, and then be patient. And when you struggle, go find regenerative solutions for the ecosystem you’re growing into.
