Garden Planning from the Ground Up

Last year (my-year-of-the-duplex-apartment-rental) was the first in nearly 40 years that I did not have a home garden.  I deeply missed the tending, the growth, the harvesting.  And so, as my wife and I surveyed potential homes, one of the must haves on the list was space to garden.  Indeed, several houses were ruled out quickly because they didn't have gardening potential.  We also fell in love with several very well-established gardens that unfortunately couldn't outweigh the house renovation work we were willing to put in.

What we landed on by purchasing the home we did, however, was a blank slate.  There is what seems to be a well-designed (but overgrown) rain garden in front, yet there was no other gardening on the site.  We noted the great sunlight, the potential to make additional gardening space, and the opportunity to create our own gardens.  The dreaming began.

Here at the cafe, our soil of our boulevard garden containers has been visible all winter. The last harvest of brussels sprouts was in late December, and this past week it seemed as if the kale and cabbage that are still standing were trying to perk up again.  The beds have been a constant reminder of the spring that is ahead, the growth that is possible, the harvests that have been. Already, the "seed-keeper" at Lake Country School has checked in about working together this spring.  Gardening planning is tugging at me.

We are one of those odd cafes that celebrates Plastic-Free February by actually being "plastic-free" for customers.  Through Hennepin County and MNimize, we're taking on personal and collective challenges to reduce and eliminate our use of plastics.  This month the Butter staff will monitor our use of what little plastic (bags and food wrap for the most part) we are using and how we can better recycle, reuse, or eliminate it from our cafe.  I was glad to see that "planning a garden" is listed as a Plastic-Free Challenge activity, for indeed, the more we grow ourselves and harvest here on site, the less we need any packaging - plastic or otherwise - to put these ingredients to use.  Will you join the Plastic-Free Challenge with us?

February is also a month of setting up and getting connected to our collection of Community Supported Agriculture Farms.  These "gardeners" are also planning for the growing season ahead, and their ability to have an accurate number of members to grow for, gives them the ability to better invest in their farming efforts.   It is a bittersweet year for us here in that our longest running CSA - Turnip Rock Farm - has ended its CSA to better focus on their farmers market and online store efforts.  In their place though, we will welcome one of their neighbors, Whetstone Farm and we look forward to growing this relationship with kindred spirits in sustainability and community building.  Our dear friends from St. Croix Valley CSA and our connection to the Hmong American Farmers Association that we began last year, will also be with us to provide a wide variety of food options for our neighbors and our use at the cafe.

Garden planning for me has always been about faith and hope.  As I tend a plot of earth to grow things of beauty and nourishment I am participating in a "tuning in" to the creative spirit alive in this earth we inhabit.  In the midst of so much other visible pain, sadness, and despair that the world carries, gardening is one of my ways to bring me balance.  The sprouting of a seed is one of those miracle/mysteries that deepens my faith in the creating God of love at work all around me.  The act of tending these sprouts is a physical way for me to co-create and join in this mystery of love-growing.

And so, when I'm approached by someone with a dream and desire to create a place for bringing more love into the world, I feel the cool soil beneath my fingertips, and know a seed is being planted.  Over the years, several other coffee shops have arisen from this seed-tending, and I was overjoyed this past weekend to sit down for an hour and dig into the soil of another new cafe-to-be with a new friend.  It is a true gift of Butter Bakery Cafe, at year 18, to have sustained itself enough to be a place of new-growth for others.  I imagine this work as garden planning, seed planting, soil preparation, and in some ways, a grafting to start new shoots.

It was somewhat obvious to me during that conversation that I might just be tilling the soil for another new garden, the one that will be my-life-after-Butter Bakery.  This garden-of-the-next-me will benefit from the many years of tending and harvesting here at the cafe, the love and support I've received, and the experiences that have taught me how to be more welcoming, generous, and loving.  What will grow in the garden that I tend next is still a mystery to me, but it is one I hope to share with each of you, the community that has sustained me and a vision for how a neighborhood can grow in ways to nurture us all.

The garden awaits, the soil is resting but ready, the green path leads on. Walk with me.