“As long as I have a pig and garden, no one can tell me what to do.”
- Fannie Lou Hamer
We often over simplify and amalgamate Black people’s relationship to nature, the environment, and land. I am guilty of this as well, in an attempt to highlight the violent legacies of land exploitation and Black displacement. We sometimes lose sight of the healing and complex relationships Black people (individually and collectively) have to natural places and other sentient beings. The following thoughts on Black people with gardens during the pandemic explores these myriad relationships as they relate to wider society, historical lineages, and (sub)conscious Black generational traditions.
When I speak of a garden, I don’t only mean an outdoor space. I understand a garden to include any space where there is the intentional care and cultivation of plants, flowers, and/or greenery. This can happen inside one’s home, especially if you don’t have access to an outdoor space or land where you can grow plants or food. Even those of us who live in urban areas can connect with nature and participate in ecological / agricultural systems. Urban and rural areas rely on each other to function. They are part of a continuum. This polarized distinction between urban areas and non-urban areas is not beneficial for what is necessary for us all to survive. Whether you live in a rural community or the city, we should all know where food comes from and understand the process of growing and sustaining plant / seed life.
People identifying as Black starting and growing their gardens during the Pandemic makes clear that practices of self-care are connected to accessing nature and healthy food. While some people understand nature to be outside, out there, plants bring nature to us when we can’t be out there. In addition to plants and gardens improving our mental health, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that self-determination and sustainable consumption—practiced by growing some of our own food—is more possible when we have more time. Of the people I surveyed, every one said their plant collection / garden has grown since the pandemic. Additionally, 85 percent of respondents said that they have started growing food since the pandemic when they were not previously. Of the top reasons why they started expanding their gardens were: having more non-work time, spending more time at home, as well as exchanging and receiving seeds / plant starts since the pandemic.
“Plants, fruits, vegetables, herbs, should all be accessible for everyone.”
-PKR [Miami, Florida]
During times of crisis we are encouraged to think about the broken systems in our societies and find ways to not participate in them as much as is possible. The food system in this country is particularly problematic, and especially so for working class people who cannot afford organic food. Even the possibility to grow a garden or grow your own food highlights the lack of access to land and space for low-resourced Black people, and urban communities generally. While none of the respondents started their gardens because they identify as Black, several respondents mentioned histories of enslavement, displacement and insecurity as reasons why it’s important for Black people to grow food and have connections to nature.
“I feel a responsibility to know how to grow food where I can. It's adventurous and fraught with connections to how black folks have been tied to the land here.”
-Malik [Oakland, California]
Recognizing generational relationships to nature and having plants in the home was another theme that respondents identified. Several people mentioned seeing plants and gardens at their grandparents’ homes growing up. These memories resurfaced for people as they reflected on their own relationships to their gardens. The histories of Black migration and shifts away from agricultural ways of life still reverberate now. In the early and mid-20th century our great-grandparents and grandparents left the land in the South and moved to urban areas in the Northeast, Midwest and West for more economic opportunities. This generational reminder of movement signals the importance of our ancestors bringing their connection to nature with them, even in a small way, when their more substantial relationship to the land has been severed. Not unlike enslaved African women who braided seeds into their hair before being forced on the journey across the Atlantic.
“Growing my indoor garden gives me a sense of closeness to my ancestry but also brings me peace and joy during a time that is insanely stressful.”
-Andreece [Chicago, Illinois]
Gardens impact so many aspects of our lives and society even when it may not be our intention to do so. Gardens allow us to participate less in the industrialized food system, which helps to reclaim one aspect of our lives: how and what we eat. The choice of what we put into our bodies is truly a form of freedom many urban and low-income communities do not have. I have heard more than a few stories of gardens being ripped out at low-income apartment residences because of exclusionary occupancy laws that force low-income folks to participate in an unsustainable food system that benefits from their lack of choices.
“To be able to live off the land if and when this current system crashes... Being self-sustaining and not depending on the government is freedom to me as a black person.”
-Bibi [Durham, North Carolina]
“Gardening has been my main source of peace / calm amidst the anti-Black world we live in. It's given me something to focus on that allows me to slow down and occupy my mind, thinking about the wellbeing of the plants in my care, something within my control. Because of the urgency of finding / building alternatives to our white supremacists capitalist system, I've also begun learning more about black farms / farmers, and local farming collectives, and farmers markets—a whole world.”
-anonymous [Occupied Duwamish Territories (Tukwila, Washington)]
Self-care is a form of freedom. It is a tiny reparation we can give to ourselves in the midst of all of that we can’t control in the world. Gardening and taking care of plants is a form of self-care. It allows us to connect to nature, which calms our spirit and improves our overall well-being: mental and physical. People racialized as Black have experienced and continue to experience trauma. This trauma manifests in the mind and the body. It can make us hold our breath, forget to breathe. Or sometimes we are being constricted so we cannot breathe. Plants help humans breathe by providing us with oxygen. In a world where our breathing is not a priority, having plants literally and emotionally helps us to breathe. Being able to breathe freely and deeply is an intense feeling of calm.
“Tending my garden brings me peace. It gives me a sense of connection, belonging and nurturing that’s mutual. It has greatly improved my mental and emotional well being.”
-Elizabeth [Oakland, California]
For some of us, growing a garden allows us to connect to our ancestry. For others of us, it is about building alternatives to the current society that has proven unable to take care of our needs, emotional health, and safety. Although gardening, growing plants and growing our food should not be a luxury—it is. Racism not only distracts us from taking care of ourselves, it makes accessing nature and things that make us emotionally and physically healthy more difficult. Racism takes up our time. Having more time allows us to cultivate more intentionally and with unhurried care. The pandemic has given some of us more time, and has taken time away from others. With the time that some of us have gotten more of, people have decided to tend to plants, tend to seed and tend to self. These acts lead us to a better life, a freer life. Hopefully these changes can become part of a new normal that is so deeply needed.