Nammah's Garden: When life sends you a toxic ploom

It was early spring, we had only begun to prepare the garden for planting. With the studio transformed into guest space, my seedling/grow light station in need of a new home, I traded for plants this year. Eggs and honey! Some beautiful plants were traded and gifted. They were in the house until the ground was ready. I was at UMD the day it happened. Sara and our friend Regina were coming from our house to Duluth for an event. The sky over Superior became covered in a dark cloud. The Husky oil refinery exploded. Superior, WI and surrounding areas were being evacuated.

We didn't think a lot more about it - 20 plus miles downwind - until we saw a map of the ploom. Right over Nammah's Place. The soil likely contaminated. My colleagues at UMD with such expertise recommended we not eat food grown in our soil. "It's just one year. Do something else." Do something else? People who know me know that THIS is not just a hobby or even a passion, it is a way of life. I choose a 10 month contract (2 months less salary) to grow the food I would otherwise purchase. There is always scarcity in the abundance. Planting, growing, tending, harvesting, canning and freezing...to last the entire year. Maybe two if there are off years. Some people put money in savings. I put away food. It holds the same value - and effort - in my mind.

It's is times like this when you know it is even more than that! Yes it is my choice to be as sustainable as possible with what we eat - rather than working more for money to buy that food. But it is SO much more than that. It is in my cells, my DNA, my hands, my being. The thought that this one little piece of the earth I can have "control" of and do right by - organic - permaculture...but a toxic ploom from an explosion over 20 miles away!?! It threw me into a painful and important level of awareness of what many people in the world experience all the time. Unnatural disasters with disproportionate consequences. Polluted rivers. Eminent domain for pipelines and interstates. My safe and sacred space - my garden - polluted from above and there was nothing I could do about it. Another illusion of control...shattered.

And still the power and resilience of Mother Earth, taught me her lesson once again. "Plant flowers." My chemical engineer colleague said. "The flowers this year will take up the toxicity from the soil so it will be eliminated for plants the following year." This notion made me want to weep. The metaphor of sacrifice for the next generation! And the fortune that only one year was required to rid the risks from our soil. Some aren't so fortunate.

We shifted our plan. Flowers in the raised beds and veggies in the pots.

A salvaged bed frame from pals Tom and David at Whippoorwill Farm and two truckloads of WLSSD composted black dirt and a completed greenhouse (just in time). We were back in the "business" we call a way of life!

Turned out our squash bed was still covered with cardboard and straw from the previous year, so upon removing it, we had a patch of uncontaminated garden soil IN the garden as well.