The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D.,
Ph.D. (8/28/2014
The
SSLUG garden at NAU meanders down a draw between a parking lot and the College of Social McConnell Drive College
of Social and Behavioral Sciences and
the College of Business Administration
A deft example of
redeeming wasted space, with the blessing of the university the garden was created
by a group of students led by Ian Dixon-McDonald to bring forth wealth out of detrital
poverty. Paradoxically, artichokes thrive
next to pumpkins while nourishing their differences in the same soil. Also, the garden is productive without profit
while renewing the land. In short, the
SSLUG garden is a statement.
The
garden’s name is one of those artificially contrived acronyms in favor nowadays. It is Students for Sustainable Living and
Urban Gardening. Slugs are garden pests
found in warmer climes, but never mind, this is a college garden.
The
buildings for the two colleges are handsomely nondescript. Straight
lined, they reflect the academic attempt rationally to understand the
irrational, that is, human behavior.
The garden’s not
rational. Like Topsy in Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, it “just growed.” It wasn’t
designed. It evolved out of a vision by
students who understood that education if just cerebral is incomplete without engaging
gardening and the land. At first glance the
garden starts at the top, but it grew from the bottom, gradually climbing up
the wasted slopes, reclaiming them as it went.
The SSLUG garden in
many ways is a return to the primitive farming methods of composting, plowing
leftover organic matter back into the ground.
Along with that it is a rejection of modern industrial fertilizers and
pesticides in favor of the organic.
At the very top of
the garden are the composting bins, apparently made out of scrap lumber,
scrounged from somewhere around the university, but then again compost bins are
seldom gleamingly straight lined.
All through the
garden, even up on balconies, are various tanks and containers in which
rainwater is saved for use in the garden.
Composting and saving rainwater are a part of the sustainability which
is better called renewal because we are all playing “catch up” rather than
sustaining.
There is no
apparent design to the hundreds of small beds nurtured by the various students
or to the bizarre juxtaposition types of plants. It appears haphazard to the eye, but useful
to the gardeners who want to grow the fruit, vegetables, and flowers. In short, it makes sense to anyone connected
to the land. Designer gardens are
tidy. Productive gardens aren’t. Practicality is as much a test for truth as
is coherence.
Jan
Busco, the current COG (Campus Organic Gardener), oversees and manages the
garden. She knows more about gardening
in the high country than anyone else I have ever met, and added to that, like
the land, she nourishes plants and humans with a smile that envelopes the whole
of her face. If anyone craves an
interesting, ironic, funny conversation, she’s the person to go to. She’s a beauty in jeans.
She pointed out
several examples of a slick use of the military tactic of diversion, planting a
strong plant or weed next to a weaker plant so as to draw predators away. A large purple amaranth with several holes
dotting its leaves sat cheek by jowl with some fragile lettuce. An unwanted cut-leaf viper grass gave pollen
to the bees and seeds for small birds.
As
we passed a couple of purple artichoke plants, she noticed that one of the
artichokes had been picked. She said,
“One of the reassuring things about the garden is the gardeners. They never take more than they need. They always leave something for someone
else.”
When
so many are on hell-bound drives for success, what better words to describe the
garden than that “they always leave something for someone else.” The SSLUGGERS are not only sustaining the
earth but also one another. Talk about
quality!
Copyright
© Dana Prom Smith 2014
Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit Gardening Etcetera for the Arizona
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