Said it.

This morning I woke up to hearing a native birdcall echo around this Aro Valley, as the wintery sunshine made its appearance in fragmented kaleidoscopic shapes on my bedroom wall.

This morning I woke up to hearing about the beginnings of the Wairarapa Eco Farm, and their uncertain beginnings after coming to New Zealand from the Nederlands.

15 years, 4 children, and many risks later they have 100 customers, 3 workers and many volunteers who work tirelessly to get organic vegetables and fruit to Wellington every Thursday evening.

They are, simply put, committed to the ideal of healthy soil, healthy environment, healthy food; healthy people.

Healthy communities.

I hear these phrases loosely toyed with in conversations around me,

I hear the words organic, health and environment float about;

But often strung deftly in there is the word supermarket, polished, beautiful; bigger, better.

Tasteless.

Wellington is lucky to have green areas, many of them. Wellington is lucky to have cusped community gardens. But these are struggling to survive due to little commitment to the gritty feet, the mud under the fingernails; the burrowing fingers into the rich, moist soils of early winter.

Due also, perhaps, to little awareness of the inextricable links between a healthy land and a healthy stomach, we commit to our stomachs and bodies with the best knowledge that we have.

The bought and sold knowledge of instant gratification?

But imagine. An hour a week in a garden of sewing, growing, harvesting could bring hours of better living, happier thoughts, tastier food and bodies and minds that were more in tune with the pulses of the land; the same rhythm of this eternal river we float down.

That hour of wholesome food tending/gardening could reduce your medical bills and your stress levels. What if we were committed to the ideal of healthy soils, healthy environments, home grown food; healthy people? Healthy communities?

Would it really be so bad.

What if we knew it wasn’t always going to be easy; that it could take as much time the farmers at the Wairarapa Eco Farm took, as many risks and as much trial and error to sustain what they have now?

But what if we knew that we would be so much better for it in the end?

So now, with the sunshine out, the earth nicely enriched by the recent rain and the birds echoing around this luscious valley we have, put on some gardening gloves and plant some broad beans, corn salad, garlic, mustard greens, peas, radish and spinach!

Happy gardening!