A Shared Garden and a Little Mutual Aid

This fall, a friend and I are hoping to harvest blue corn, poblanos, and a bunch of other things I’ve never grown and am very excited about, from a garden we’re sharing this year. I moved to Taos a little over a year ago from the Pacific Northwest, and gardening in this high desert climate felt intimidating. Different soil, different water, and honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing. So I asked a friend I’d met through TimeBank leadership work if she’d be open to co-gardening at her place. She said yes. It was already mid-May, and the garden was overrun with grass and very much needed amending. Another member had posted an offer to till people’s gardens, so we reached out to him. In the end, he didn’t just till our bed. He also delivered a ton of miniature pony manure to fertilize our soil, which I can only assume will imbue whatever grows in it with a little more magic than standard compost. We already knew him from the Taos Community Builders course we’d launched through the TimeBank Academy, and we’d each traded time with him before. At this point I think we’re stuck with him, and honestly, lucky to be. What I love is that the garden itself is its own little experiment in sharing resources and mutual aid. Two friends, one patch of land, pooling what we have instead of going it alone. It’s the same idea as the TimeBank, but with soil. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and maybe that’s what moments like this are for. So much of our culture has been pulling us apart, and yet here we are, finding creative ways to come back together.