How do you grow a garden? by Linda Black Elk

I get asked this question so frequently and I always struggle with a response because, for every amazing gardener, there’s a different and probably contradictory answer to this question.

A few months back, I attended a meeting of master gardeners and every one in attendance expressed their joy (because gardening is incredibly joyous), but more often than joy, these master gardeners expressed their unending frustration and disappointment about the things that could, and do, go wrong in their gardening endeavors.

Let me be clear...these were master gardeners. Most of them had been gardening for decades upon decades, and they were still perplexed by nature’s unexpected mysteries. One elder remarked, “ I planted the seeds exactly as I had done for over 30 years, and this year they just didn’t grow.” Another elder said “Even experienced gardeners will tell you that sometimes, you just have to ‘try it and see.’”

For years I have been going in to elementary school classrooms and teaching young children how to grow plants. I keep it simple. I bring soil, paper cups, and seeds. That’s it. As I walk slowly around the room, handing out the supplies to each tiny person, I talk softly about the seeds. I tell each seed story in as much detail as possible. “This is a type of squash that your ancestors have been growing for generations. It has sustained the Lakota people through everything from the first meeting with the wasicu, to the Battle of Little Big Horn, to the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline.” I tell these children how precious each individual seed is, how productive they can be, and how our ancestors have been nurturing, tending, appreciating, and praying over these seeds for millennia. I tell these young minds that our seeds literally know them, know their grandmothers and great-grandmothers going back to a time before stick frame houses. These seeds contain memory, and they recognize us as relatives. They know our lineages.

After talking about the seeds, the children begin treating their seeds differently. Some of them construct crayon walls around each seed for protection; some of them hold their tiny seeds in shaky hands, too afraid to put them down for fear they might lose this precious being...their relative. They hold each seed with reverence and love.

From there, it’s so simple. I just have the students fill each cup with soil, and then I have them place the seed in the soil...not too deep… just below the surface. We water them and place the cups in the window. Mni Wiconi and ožáŋžaŋ. That’s all it is. Seed, soil, water, and sun. It really is that simple...you plant a sacred seed, give it water and sun, and watch it grow.

But, “Linda,” you might ask, “How much water? How much soil? How much sunlight? How deep do I plant it? How often do I sing for it? How often do I pray over it? How rich does the soil need to be? How many of these sweet little seedlings do I need to thin out?”

Listen, while these are all certainly valuable questions, please realize that a lot of our fears - and this goes for any traditional activity from gardening to spearing fish to gathering sacred plant medicines - arise from historic trauma. We have been taught that the ways of our ancestors are scary...that we can’t grow our own food because grocery stores are more civilized...that we shouldn’t cook traditional foods because they don’t taste as good without all the salt and sugar...that we can’t gather our own medicines because we don’t know as much as white doctors...that we can’t educate our children because we aren’t “knowledgable enough.”

The truth is, we must grow our own food and save our own seeds. For decades, gardening has been a hobby, but we must see the agricultural-industrial complex for what it is...and we must take action to reduce our consumption of Big Ag products. Gardening is no longer an “option” for Native peoples. It is an essential activity that our ancestors perfected and that we must perpetuate for the survival of our children.

So...put aside your fears, take a deep breath, and then plant a sacred seed, give it water and sun, and watch it grow.

Sure. You can Google the perfect seed depth for your Arikara yellow beans, your Tesuque chilies, or your Kathy’s Red Barn Tomatoes. That’s fine. Perhaps you could ask an Arikara elder, a few old ladies from Tesuque Pueblo, or even dear “Kathy of the Red Barn” herself about the perfect conditions for each beautiful seed variety in your possession....and that’s fine too. Go ahead. But eventually, you’re just going to have to trust those seeds. You’re going to need to stay calm and remember that your soil, your container, your weather, your precipitation, your daily temperatures, the time you spend at work, the time you spend with your kids, the songs you sing and the prayers you recite will all be different....and that’s FINE.

You’ll run in to challenges. Maybe you won’t have any pollinators; maybe your soil is too wet; maybe the gophers or the crows or the squirrels will come eat all of your seeds. Maybe your plants will get 3” tall and the rabbits will eat them all down to the ground. Maybe....maybe...maybe. Just breathe and remember that gardening is the sweetest act of resistance and resilience. You are planting generations of memories going backwards and forwards.

Here’s the best gardening advice I can give: Plant a sacred seed, give it water and sun...and watch it grow.

If it doesn’t work, learn from your mistakes, revise your plan, and try again next year.