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Winter. The garden looks more like it’s beginning. Bare brown earth is revealed once more in the wake of verdant harvests. Dying crops are relieved of their efforts, pulled up and lain on a compost pyre. Wizened courgette leaves and tired-out tomato tendrils will be resurrected as rich nutrients for another season’s growth. The beds are mulched with whatever we can get our hands on to nourish the soil over winter. A neighbouring riding school provides poo a plenty. Home grown compost, straw and mushroom compost complete the cocktail.        

We try out some artificial mulch, as well as a special paper mulch, which will disintegrate over time. Garlic bulbs are tucked through this crepe paper blanket, and then blanketed with straw. The garlic relishes the first frosts, their journey kickstarting towards spring. With each bulb pressed into cold earth, we anticipate summer stir fries, sauces and pestos. 

We are still eating from the garden. Stored onions and potatoes. Beetroot, leeks and carrots pulled up for dinner, sticky with dark soil. The reliable winter greens: brussels, kale and spinach. The welcome russet and gold on our plate of rainbow chard. Salad leaves and winter purslane thrive under the canopy of our tunnel. It is a wonder to behold the growth persisting through these cold dark months, nourishing us while taking little from us in terms of labour at this time.

 

 

We acknowledge our need for this change of pace. We know what last Spring/Summer was like. There is something very fitting about beds lying dormant under straw as we exhale and let the garden lie a little quieter underfoot.

It has been a gift to learn the discipline and rhythm of seasonal growing and eating so far. We have tomato sauces, kale and basil pestos in our freezer and suddenly Spring doesn’t seem so far away after all. 

There is much work to do in preparation for another season of growth in Charis Garden. In mid-November Jeremy put a week’s hard graft into a chainsaw course with a view to beginning clearance work in the old walled garden as well as processing firewood. 

We continue to research, plot and plan for inviting hens to take up residence in Charis Garden. The threat of fox and mink mean we need to put some thought and effort into safeguarding our feathered egg offering inhabitants.

We discuss growing plans, crop rotation and plot the development of a community gathering space in the yet to be cleared wilderness of the walled garden.

 

The following is an excerpt from a sermon Jeremy delivered at the annual Church of Ireland Harvest Services in St. Brigid’s Church, Ballintubbert and Athy.

Charis Garden is a space of about 2/3 of an acre and situated in Ballyadams. Out of it, we have developed a small scale market garden that is now supplying a regular veggie box to between 10 and 15 local homes between Ballyadams, Athy and Stradbally. We fill the boxes with whatever seasonal produce the garden yields on any given week.

I want to tell you more about our garden. But, before I do, I want to dip into the Big Story of Scripture – because apart from that story, it is hard to grasp what Charis Garden is really all about.

The Big Story

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden…

These are the words of Genesis 2.8. Right at the beginning of the Bible story – after God has created the heavens and the earth, and fashioned Adam and Eve – we read that God set about creating a garden.

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…

And so we begin with a garden: the Bible’s sweeping narrative unfolds from here. It’s what we might call the Big Story: the catastrophic Fall, the tragic loss of Eden, the marring of the world through sin and hate – and, in the midst of this unfolding story, the loving determination of God to restore what has been lost.

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, we hear God speak through his prophets. And often in the imagery of the garden. For example, in Isaiah 27, he likens his people Israel to a vineyard:

A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!/I, the Lord, am its keeper;/Every moment I water it./Lest anyone punish it,/I keep it night and day./Would that I had thorns and briers to battle!…/In days to come Jacob shall take root,/Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots/And fill the whole earth with fruit.

Elsewhere, in Isaiah 51, he declares –

For the Lord comforts Zion;/He comforts all her waste places/And makes her wilderness like Eden;/Her desert like the garden of the Lord.

This green-fingered God describes the salvation he will bring to his people. He promises nothing less than cosmic rescue. The loss of Eden will be reversed. Creation, until now knotted with the thorns of evil, will finally be restored.

And by the time we meet Jesus – God made flesh and bone, walking on the earth he made – we hear him speak in garden images. He speaks of good soil, bad soil, hard soil; he speaks of thorns, wheat and tares; he speaks of sparrows, mustard seeds, trees and flowers; he speaks of fields and vineyards. He spins stories – filled with garden images – to illustrate the reality of his Kingdom.

And on the night of his betrayal, as the cross looms, we find him on his knees, sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.

And, on the dawn of resurrection, who is the first to meet him? Mary Magdalene.

And what does she mistake him for? A gardener.

This is how John tells it in his Gospel:

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ Having said this, she turned and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned to him and said to him in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher).

There are no throwaway details in Scripture. John is telling us the Lord has returned from the thorny chaos of death. The resurrection of Jesus is proof-positive that God has followed through on all of his promises to save a world despoiled by evil

The gardener is not finished. He has returned, and he will finish his work.

As the Book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible, closes, we are no longer in the company of a single couple, surrounded by a bucolic paradise of exotic creatures. Eden is no longer a garden but a garden-city, peopled with all the nations of the world.

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there. (Rev. 21.23-24)

And so John brings us to a close. The symbolic language strains to communicate the incommunicable. But one thing is clear: God has been faithful to all his promises. The lost garden has been restored. We are dwellers of his garden-city, his presence is our light.

Charis Garden

So much for the Big Story. So much for hope in anticipation of the garden renewed. But what about the present realities of a torn and broken world? As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, creation groans – not least because of the rampant environmental destruction caused by human greed.

And in fact, it is Paul, in a roundabout way, who brings us back to Charis Garden. For the name of our garden comes from the Greek word χαρις (charis) that he uses in so many of his letters.

The meaning of charis is ‘grace’, the loving-kindness of God. It also connotes joy, pleasure and thanksgiving.  It occurs 155 times in the NT. And Paul opens many of his letters with the greeting, ‘Grace (charis) to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Romans 1.7)

Paul’s letters call Christian communities in every age to persevere, to cultivate love in the midst of long-suffering; the patient garden-work of genuine discipleship. But it all begins with charis, with grace. It begins with who God is, and what he has already done for us in his Son, Jesus Christ.

And so Charis Garden is the name we chose for our garden. Our vision is threefold. Each aspect begins with an S: Soil, Soul and Solace. We want to bring these three strands together – tending the land (Soil), ministering to others (Soul) and providing a space of shelter and comfort, where appropriate, to those who may need it (Solace).

In the Big Story ofScripture, we glimpse God’s commitment to his creation. He does not abandon the beleaguered earth. Instead, he loves and restores what is lost and broken. Somehow, in some small way, we hope Charis Garden reflects the Big Story: God’s way of loving the earth and everything in it. We hope the garden space, and the food it provides, will be a blessing to those who partake…

Mid-September. The garden is still awash with colour. Each week we say we will be slowing down, and yet another yield of vegetables appears.

 

We start to hear stories of how our veg links with the lives of those who feast from Charis Garden. The boy who hates onions but eats the ones we grow. The woman who thought she didn’t like tomatoes until she tasted our varieties. The couple who tells us the veg box is the highlight of their week. The man who says he never thought kale could taste so good. We also share in the joy of feasting from the garden, skipping the vegetable aisle in the supermarket completely. The garden provides.

The daily work with soil, plants, rain, sun, slugs and caterpillars is what makes it all possible. By now, the lines on Jeremy’s hands are engraved with clay. Our three year old learns how to lift spuds and pick beans, without pulling down the whole plant. Claire realises she can pick and pack salad leaves with a baby on her back.

In the meantime, word of mouth continues to connect new people to the garden. The local Church of Ireland minister pays a visit, and mid-garden tour, invites Jeremy to speak at the annual Harvest Service. The thirteen year old niece of a friend, whose name is also Charis, comes to visit her garden namesake. Jeremy’s cousin Maebh travels from Sweden to lend a hand for a few days.

We are struck by the overwhelming weight of the garden, the way it gravitates us into rhythms of hard and constant labour. We are also struck by the hunger of our local community for good food, grown well. There is no shortage of people who want to eat what we grow. We feel the push to grow more, supply more, get bigger, better and busier. We discuss packing sheds and cold storage solutions as the Summer heat intensifies. Jeremy enrolls in a business course one day a week. We negotiate the rollercoaster of uncertainty involved in growing seasonal produce for a local community. Do we create a pick up point? Do we deliver? Do we have a fixed cost? Do we offer choice in weekly boxes? What happens if everyone goes on holidays all at once? Why are we growing all this stuff anyway? Should we put that first beautiful head of broccoli in a veg box for sale, or keep it for ourselves?

We come back to the garden. The bees hum their way through the Phycelia and Clover. Sunflowers stretch and open. We observe how everyone who enters Charis Garden is touched by how beautiful, how alive it is with the fruits of flowers and food.

Charis is a Greek word meaning grace: God’s way of loving the earth and all people. At times, in the stretch of the busy summer, it is easy to forget that we labour here in the midst of grace – God’s love, joy and beauty – and not primarily under the hard and unforgiving laws of market production. Our first priority is to nurture the garden so that it, in turn, can bring blessing to the lives of the people around us. If we can’t be kind to ourselves, we can’t extend this charis to others.

Three words define what Charis Garden is all about: Soil, Soul and Solace. For months now, we had poured our efforts into the soil, and the fruits of the soil’s harvest are richly evident. We are now beginning to explore the garden’s purpose as a place of soul-food and solace for people too.

As Autumn approaches and the garden begins to slow down, we sink deeper into the furrows of our path here, slowing down to reflect on how these aspects of the garden might develop. We plan our sowing schedule and think ahead through winter into spring again.

We also sow into Soul and Solace by beginning an intentional rhythm of prayer to keep our hearts centred in the presence of the God of grace. We sit with the uncertainty as seeds pressed into soil trust that darkness will not hinder their growth into light.

From the start, Charis Garden has been a community act: many different people are already part of the story, having given vital hands-on assistance, counsel or encouragement – not to mention the teeming crowds of creatures, above and beneath the soil, who make all the growing happen.

Our first blog post offers a glimpse into an unfolding journey of growth…

December 2017

Genesis. In the beginning there was jungle: a half-dead orchard, carpets of ivy, a forest of invasive bamboo with canes fifteen feet tall, clusters of nettle, dock and thistle. We begin with a spread of black silage tarp, enough to keep the soil warm through winter and block the rush of summer weeds.

 

March 2018

To learn the basics of organic growing, Jeremy embarks on an apprenticeship at Moyleabbey Farm in nearby Ballitore. You can read about some of his experiences here: https://foodture.ie/2018/10/02/a-growers-diary/.

June 2018

Jeremy finds an old bee hive. Clueless, he decides to have a go at setting a bait hive to catch a swarm of bees. He adds a roof to the hive (a discarded fertiliser sack), a base (a section of old plywood) and sets it on a barrel in the shade of a horse chestnut tree, right in the middle of the teeming garden wilderness. Days later, he pays the hive a visit and, to his intense surprise and delight, discovers a bee colony has moved in.

A week later, David (Claire’s father) lifts another swarm out of a tree and places it in a second hive. Our beekeeping journey begins.

 

January 2019

We tackle the mighty tangle of bamboo. Canes are cut at the base with a heavy-duty strimmer or chainsaw and carried out of the garden by hand. The roots are forked up in the jaws of a silage grab and heaped in a corner of the garden.

 

The tractor rips up the gnarled trunks of apple trees. We are careful to keep one tree intact: a reminder of the orchard that graced the garden in a former time.

The clearance work continues. The jungle slowly devolves into a blank, muddy canvas.

February

As his namesake suggests, David is a feller of giants. He guns his chainsaw and gets to work on a variety of towering sycamore and ash. One by one they fall. The vast trunks are then slowly sectioned up for firewood.

Trees can fall in unpredictable ways. One vast sycamore trunk landed a mere inch from the beehives situated near its base.

Vast tree stumps dot the bare soil. Raymond, a neighbouring farmer, shows up first with an antique digger and later, a giant JCB, to pull them up.

A brand new polytunnel is installed. Jeremy gets busy digging the beds inside, adding buckets of farmyard manure (supplied by  neighbouring farmer) and coffee grounds (supplied by a busy local café) to bulk up fertility.

March

In the aftermath of tractor traffic and tree removal, soil is uneven and damaged in places. Work is slow. Beds are gradually formed with fork, shovel, rake and hands.

On March 7^th Jeremy sows the very first seeds – beetroot, broccoli, kale, turnip, salads, kohlrabi, scallions and basil.

He clears the hedging that hugs the borders of the garden and replaces tumble-down fencing. Chicken wire is installed to deter rabbit entry.

From a stash of old windows, the Hot Box is built: our very own custom-made plant propagator. A heat blanket is added to provide the crucial warmth needed to spark the seeds. Over the coming months, the Hot Box provides the vital start for a whole host of heat-loving crops: tomatoes, aubergine, cucumber, bell peppers, courgettes, squash and pumpkin all begin life here.

Sowing continues throughout the month. Most seeds begin life in a seed tray. Once sapling-sized, they are ready to be transplanted into a bed. Potatoes are the first crop to be sown directly into open soil and fed with a generous dump of horse manure (provided by another neighbour.)

April

Work continues apace as the outdoor beds become more defined. The first salad crops are planted in the polytunnel.

The bee hives have sat in the same place since the day the bees first arrived, now almost a year ago. The work of garden transformation has hummed around them. Now Jeremy and David begin the task of moving them to the apiary area (recently an almost impenetrable heap of dead wood and ivy.) They decide the best option is to shift the hives, three feet a day, along a set of ladders.

Onions, Fench beans, salads, kale, tomatoes: all these and more are beginning to green the bare soil of the garden. Jeremy constructs a French bean trellis out of the bamboo canes removed from the garden in January.

May

Both bee hives swarm repeatedly over a four week period. We go from two hives to six.

Meanwhile, the salad bed blooms. The first leaves are cut and savoured. Kale, purple top turnip, spinach, succulent head lettuce and coriander are harvested. We begin to share the wealth with neighbours and friends.

June

The garden is a riot of life. Beds of green manure burst with colour – clovers, Phacelia, sunflowers, marigolds – humming with bumble bees and hoverflies. The green canopies of the potato drills are thickening; the first Earlies will be harvested in the next fortnight.

Courgettes are beginning to bulge; tomatoes are forming in the tunnel beside the burgeoning cucumbers, scallions and beans. Bell pepper and aubergine plants are flowering. Hopefully, by summer’s end, we’ll be harvesting their succulent fruits.