It was the author Barbara Kingsolver who handed me the spears for revolution. In her beautiful book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, she writes about planting asparagus in the yard of every house she has ever lived in – no matter how insecure her tenure. This resonated as a potentially powerful act of hope and humanity. Asparagus takes at least three years before you can harvest the spears. So anyone who plants it does so in the knowledge that they themselves may not reap the benefit.
Yet just because you won't be the one to eat the asparagus doesn't mean the act of planting it isn't good. Planting asparagus is an act of hope, hope that tenure will be long enough to reap the benefits or hope that somewhere in another rental property others are planting asparagus for you to enjoy.
I realised that perhaps it was time to start planting community asparagus. Why not invest in community even if we may not be the ones to benefit? Surely the seeds of strong interconnectedness and the culture of community can yield a good harvest for many people, not just the gardener.
As you can see in my blog post Introducing the Asparagus Revolution, I tried planting asparagus and have noticed some remarkable changes.
