Growing Vegetables

There are many trends in our so-called civilization to mythologize things, and agriculture is one of them. In the making of the video about our earlier farm, Elsie's Farm, I asked the film/videomakers to be careful with this, to shoot the process, the "dirt"/soil, keep the camera and microphones low, and they did. So my hope is that those who see this production will take it on as an exercise in the demythologizing of alternative agriculture. "Boots on the ground" is not the property of the military.

Growing up in both the depression and an automotive garage, dirt was a part of things. When I ran into the slogan a few decades back which suggested "not treating your soil as dirt" I was a little confused. Dirt and soil were the same thing, although not in the garage ... that was were likely to be grease, grime, although we had some dirt there as well. When working with my grandfathers in the vegetable garden it was just plain glorious to "play in the dirt," and Joni Cash is quoted about that enjoyment in "Dirty Work."

I hope that this video will help the viewer cut through some of the stuff and get down to what alternative agriculture and growing things is. And the basis of it is soil, of course, dirt. It would be very auspicious if people who view and hear the video get the experience of dirt, and that they have the desire themselves to grow something, to compost, to dig, to get down and dirty. The mythology of farming is not helped by the advertising and public relations of commercial farming, where soil and dirt are hardly mentioned. This has to be turned around.