Regaining Eden
This image was taken from the Giant Stair hike at Palisades Park in New Jersey.
I don’t remember exactly when it started, but I’ve had a fascination with the idea of gardening for quite some time now. I distinctly remember living in my own apartment back in 2020 and being disappointed that I was not allowed to have any plants on my balcony. I thought having some vegetable plants would have been nice. It would’ve given me access to the freshest salads and cut down some of my grocery expenses. It would have also kept the vegetables fresh for longer. I guess the complex I was living in couldn’t see things this way. Regardless, I was undeterred. I ended up moving back in with my parents by the end of that year and began sharing my gardening ideas with my mom. Being from the countryside of Egypt, she was fully onboard.
Growing up in the country enabled my mom to glean all sorts of herbal knowledge from her relatives and neighbors. This became especially helpful to her when she was undergoing chemotherapy and wanted to use natural remedies to help treat some of the side effects that were caused by her treatments and medications. To be clear, we are not in the camp of modern medicine deniers. My mom believed in the effectiveness of her treatment and fully trusted her doctors. She just didn’t want to have to rely on too many medications. Each one came with its own set of side effects; some were just not bearable. So, she put her knowledge to use and made the most of whatever herbs she could get. Being her family, we wanted the best for her and supported her however we could.
Some of my earliest attempts at gardening. These are cotton plants I started indoors.
We would make her tea from pomegranate skins to help with bowel movements; cinnamon tea with turmeric, sage, honey, and other herbs when she got sick; bone broth for bone health; spinach with kale and beet greens to improve her blood counts; a salad made of beets, turnips, carrots, and scallions for general health; and all sorts of other things. I really enjoyed supporting my mom like this and loved learning all these ancient remedies from her. However, I am neither a medical professional, nor a scientist, so I can’t really speak about their effectiveness; but they seemed to work. If nothing else, they were part of her support system, which kept her spirits up through the whole ordeal. I believe that emotional support is the best therapy any cancer patient can receive.
This is where gardening comes in. From the perspective of pure pragmatism, the benefit of being able to pluck fresh herbs and use them immediately was invaluable. Why go to the store and buy dried oregano when you could simply walk into the garden and cut a fresh stem? Why bother settling for mediocre mint when you could grow your own? Why entertain the taint of chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers in your food when you could grow it yourself and avoid all those toxins? There is more to it, too. Just the simple act of being outside, playing in the dirt, interacting with God’s creation, having the sun shine down on you, and watching something you put into the soil slowly grow, develop, and eventually bear fruit just does something for the soul. It is rewarding and fulfilling in a way that’s hard to capture with words. It just feels like it’s just something we are meant to do. To me, it has an aura of returning to the idyllic paradise of Eden. It’s something that needs to be experienced, not simply described. I would certainly encourage you, my dear reader, to try your hand at gardening at least once in your life.
I had such high hopes for these plants. Sadly the temperature in our house was just too cold for them to thrive.
When we first started, however, we were trying to do too much all at once. We couldn’t settle on whether to make raised beds, grow in containers, or simply put seeds in the ground. We also couldn’t decide what to grow. I wanted to grow vegetables and experiment with cotton. My mom wanted herbs. My brother wanted to let everything grow and convert our suburban backyard into some sort of haphazard wildlife sanctuary. My dad just wanted a clean lawn. Of course, we could have compromised and allocated different sections of our yard for different things, minus the wildlife preserve, but that didn’t happen. The idea of there being different types of gardens didn’t even cross our minds. It felt like we needed to have just one garden with everything in it for some reason. It might have been an instance of culture clash. I don’t know how people garden in Egypt, but, generally speaking, things aren’t as stratified there as they are here. Attaching excessive labels to things isn’t really a part of our culture. I assume it’s the same deal with gardening. One wouldn’t have a vegetable garden or an herb garden, just a garden. Plus, I was still in school and doing my best to balance my time between schoolwork, housework, and providing care for my mom. So, our first attempts at gardening never fully materialized. But the seeds were sown for future gardening endeavors.
The following season, seeing that I was so busy with school, my mom employed the services of my little brother. By this point in time, she had had several surgeries and couldn’t really walk anymore. All her gardening aspirations hinged on what she could do vicariously through us. I did not see it like this at the time, but I suppose this is why they say hindsight is 20/20. If I saw it like that then I certainly would have appreciated it more. But there was just so much going on at the time. Fortunately, my brother and one of my mom’s friends carried my mom’s gardening ambitions to fruition. I was more focused on the domestic side of things. The dishes weren’t going to clean themselves!
My brother built some gardening beds. My mom’s friend brought her some fun plants and herbs to grow. Before long, we had a full garden. I had my own fun during the winter and tried growing some cotton indoors. Unfortunately the cotton didn’t succeed, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try again in the future. All in all, 2022 was a very productive and fruitful year. We learned a great deal about the art of gardening and even got to eat some of the fruits of our labors. The squirrels and deer got the rest.
Wandering through God’s green earth certainly inspires my own gardening and fiber art aspirations.
Starting this season without my mom didn’t feel right. My brother and I are working together on the garden, and it would be nice to have her guidance sometimes. I am learning different pest management techniques and my brother is finally understanding the importance of weeding. Despite having lost our mom to cancer in 2023, we still feel connected to her through her plants. She left us a sage bush, a rosemary bush, and a grapevine. So far they’ve lasted through two winter seasons. I suppose this is one of those spiritual aspects of gardening. Despite my mom not being here, she left us a living legacy to nurture and care for. Now she is enjoying the true paradise while we do our best to regain it down here.
This season I started a flax bed and a dye garden. My brother decided to plant some flowers. I am enjoying the journey and really looking forward to the outcome. Truth be told, I have never dyed anything before in my life. I also probably should have done more research before committing to growing these plants. However, I thought this would be the perfect way to marry my love of fiber arts to my infatuation with gardening. Because this is a fiber arts blog, these posts will track the progress of my fiber and dye plants, not the whole garden. I really hope this experiment is a success and that I get to dye some cool yarns and fabrics this season! I hope you’ll subscribe and follow along us in this journey. I will certainly be sharing my personal experiences and the results of whatever research I do when it comes to growing and dyeing with these plants. Until then, see you next post!
The start of my dye garden. I decided to go with containers to make things easier. I planted Japanese Indigo, Weld, Murasaki, and Madder. Stay tuned for updates!
