Wednesday, September 20

A busy day...

• Nick: Early- to mid-morning with the Community Transitions Program in Springfield.
  
• Andrew and Nick: Mid-morning and early-afternoon at the Organic Seed Alliance field day at the Bejo Seeds Research Farm in Cottage Grove (including lotsa photos).
  
• Nick: Mid- to late afternoon with the Garden Club at Brattain Elementary in Springfield.
  
• Phew.

The day began with a long-scheduled plant delivery and first visit with the Springfield School District's Commnity Transition Program team and their garden.

(Official schtick: "CTP directly serves or provides technical assistance to over 350 youth in Springfield School District. Transition Services are mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for Special Services students aged 14 to 21...linking students with community and local social service agencies...also providing services on an individual basis for youth with disabilities making the transition to post-high school life..in the four main domains of transition - Education, Employment, Independent Living, and Community Participation.")

After friendly introductions, we headed over to the garden the CTP team and a handful of volunteers have created.

It simply bowled me over. Not only for its sweet, simple beauty, but for the quite remarkable model it represents. Here's a garden, nestled in the grounds of the Catholic Community Services property in Springfield, clearly manifesting the cares, priorities and hopes of that tribe of bravehearts whose actions hold unerringly true, in 21st century America, to the vision of a peaceable kingdom.

Cindy, one of CTS's charges, suffered a traumatic brain injury as a child. She left the garden today with a prize pumpkin and a smile as wide as the sky.

For those who move among the poor in the Eugene-Springfield neighborhood, CCS (along with its much-cherished cousin, 'St. Vinnies') has long proven itself as the organization all creeds turn to, when in need. There you find assistance: not a lecture. And a key part of CCS's active work among the poor involves the distribution of food - most of it supplied by Food For Lane County, the food bank which oversees the farm where I (Nick) live. The Springfield CSS site is the major free food distribution center for the City of Springfield.

Organic veggies, tiny in poundage, but immense in influence, that are by grown by Community Transitions 'clients' working in the garden at the CCS site are given over to the food share program. Food scraps from the food share program are returned to the garden where the CCS 'maintenance guy', John McCoy, a veteran of 25 years of composting experience, transforms them into 'black gold' that struck me as healthy as any I have encountered in all my years moving among the compost pros. (Yes, as the Food Not Lawns collective long ago discovered, free food kitchens can be compost-making machines.) What a joy to shovel superb compost onto beds before transplanting.

Tim Moran, father of five, the affable big kahuna at CTS, and Nick. Photo taken by Cindy, who is practising her photography skills.

And so, this tiny, underfunded, deeply loved little plot of Eden literally manifests a social model I have been envisioning for a very long time - an 'inter-agency' effort which places the most vulnerable members of our society at the very heart of the Great Work asked of us - raising Eden.

The School Garden Project's seed stewardship vision finds a useful home in this garden, too. The plants we are currently transplanting there reflect a greenhouse seeding strategy which incorporates the latest in bioregional intelligence about suitable varieties of winter-hardy greens, including outdoor-grown lettuce varieties. In essence, we're trialing there, indeed, trialing a form of food production that's wholly leading-edge. There is nothing, in fact, contradictory in the communion of deep care for the most vulnerable in our midst with what is deeply, pragmatically effective, functional, revelatory. Yes, this is surely where the truest gnosis is (un)earthed.

Peeling out of Springfield, I nipped over to the Laurel Valley Educational Farm to pick up Andrew and we headed south on I-5, running two hours late for the Organic Seed Alliance field day at Bejo Seeds Research Farm in Cottage Grove. "Whoa. I had no idea you were a race car driver, Nick." "Not typical, ol' chap. Weez late."

The Organic Seed Alliance, which grew out of the literal ashes of the fire which destroyed the Abundant Life Seed Foundation in 2003, is emerging as a defining force, Stateside, in efforts to educate an emerging community of seed growers to the challenges of organic seed production. It's a difficult line to walk, that tightrope between the hard-edged demands of a for-profit world slamming the organics standard to the mat for the most part, and the responsible stewardship of agricultural genetic resources. Yet, the key figures at the OSA have managed, in recent years, to earn their outfit a well-deserved rep as the education org standing at the forefront of no-nonsense efforts to share the latest in experiential knowhow about how to grow organic seed well. The OSA's education field days have emerged as not-to-be-missed occasions. Polished, practical, friendly. Lucky for us, many of them are centered in the Pacific Northwest - the OSA is headquartered in Washington State. The OSA has a very fine website.

Micaela Colley, Farmer Outreach Coordinator, OSA

Rose Marie Nichols of Nichols Garden Nursery

Joel Reiten, Bejo Seeds

Don't let the flat top fool ya. Joel Reiten, the Bejo seedgeek who led much of the day's teach-in (Andrew and I regrettably missed most of his schtick) has one of the more sophisticated - and culturally sensitive - raps you'll hear out of corporate America, and one, furthermore, that's backed up by an integrity of action in support of small organic farmers, that extends far beyond any vested economic interest he or his company may have. As the New Paradigm takes root, in our bioregion at least, Joel appears to be emerging as one of the key cross-over individuals who appear set to play a defining role in handholding the transition of chemically intensive food production to an approach more attuned to evolutionary drift, and the values accompanying it. His hardwon plant breeding experience and lucid, keenly intelligent speaking style have made him a firm favorite of OSA audiences, too.

Ken Johnson, Professor of Botany and Plant Pathology, OSU

Small-farm and Oregon Tilth representatives.

Dr. Alex Stone, Vegetable Crop Specialist, OSU

Frank Morton, Wild Garden Seed

Andrew, and Micaela of OSA

Thank you, Micaela for, totally unprompted, gifting Andrew and me a platform to describe the Seed Ambassadors Project to attendees, over lunch, during today's field day.

Andrew and I peeled out of the field day, he to his farm and me to Springfield for Wednesday afternoon's regular Garden Club at Brattain Elementary, for more seedsaving with Hanalei and her charges.

Then home, to dinner and the web.