Q: How did you first get involved with working in the garden?

A: I had always wanted to garden, but I've lived in apartments all my adult life, so I didn't have a space to do it. When I moved to Ananda, I was thrilled to see all that space. (Photo: Barbara Fiesterman working in the garden.)

Q: Were you the kind of person who always had flower boxes in her apartment?

A: Lots of indoor plants. One way I could tell if my life was going well was if my indoor plants where thriving. It was quite amazing. Sometimes they'd all die, but I could always tell when things were going great in my life because my plants would be thriving and looking happy and beautiful. So I always knew there was an energy for me in gardening, and I felt really attracted to it, but I didn't have a space to do it.

Q: What kind of shape was the garden in when you first moved to the community? Had people been working in the garden?

A: I came in the winter, so the garden was dormant. LeAn was taking care of it back then. I told her I was really interested, but she was really busy. Although I tried to work with her, she wasn't available to show me what to do, so for a long time I had no clue. Then there was a big garden day, very similar to the one we had last week, and it was really fun. A lot of people got together and worked in the garden on a Saturday, and finally we all learned what we had to do, and so regular garden work began. Still, I wanted to do more than LeAn was available to show me, and it took a year or two before I really was able to start gardening a lot.

Q: How does the garden fit into your life?

A: I'm more like LeAn now--I'm busy with lots of other things, and other people are asking me what they can do. But during the time of my most intense involvement, I would garden three or four days a week in the morning for at least a half hour before I went to work, then I would come home from work as soon as I could and garden. It was very general work, just watering and planting and weeding. In my yoga practice, I'm a real "japa person," so while I was weeding or doing other chores I'd be singing or chanting aloud. ["japa": repeating a short prayer, devotional thought, chant, or mantram as a way to hold the mind on God.]

Q: Was gardening a meditative experience for you?

A: It was just a great wonder for me to see things growing. There's a peacefulness there--it's just a really sweet, sweet energy. It calms me down to go out to the garden. I would be very calm, watching the water come up into the air and fall down. It was magical. There's a real magic in the garden.

Q: It sounds like a place that invites you in.

A: Yes, it really does. There's energy in all things, and in growing plants there's a special energy.

Q: What happens to the vegetables from the garden? Do people buy them? Are they used in the community kitchen?

A: Both--we use what we can in the kitchen, whatever falls into the recipes, and then whatever's left over we put out in the kitchen for people to buy. It's actually like a tiny market, with a scale for people to weigh their own vegetables and pay for them. People can also go out and pick their own vegetables and get he fresh prana right off the vine and take it home and eat it. ("Prana": Sanskrit word meaning "life energy.")

Q: Can people have their own little plot in the garden?

A: We avoid that, because it promotes singular activity and not a communal energy. People can help out as much as they like, and they can buy plants and put them in the garden, but the general idea is that it's for the whole community. However, there are only a few people who really put a lot of energy into the garden. Still, it's for the whole community, and it's all volunteer. There's no compensation for any of it; it's just that if you love to do it, you can. (Photo: Garden workday, winter 2001.)

Q: How often do you have workdays where you invite everyone to come help in the garden?

A: At least every year, usually in the spring, though this year we had one at the start of winter.

Q: People seem to enjoy the workdays, even the kids.

A: Tess was talking about having a garden plot for the children, and I told her it would be great. If she wants to do that, she'll need to go ahead and take charge, but it would be great to have the kids learning about the garden. (Photo: Garden workday, winter 2001.)

One thing that comes to mind is that the garden is a place where I get to see lots of people. It's a real community experience to be out there, because everyone wants to come out to the garden where it's beautiful, and they'll stop and talk. So it's a place to be more involved in the community, where you get to talk to a lot of people. (Photo: Bagels and coffee before garden workday, winter 2001.)

Q: Isn't it funny how things like that work out in the community, almost without planning them? Is there a particular style of gardening that you practice?

A: It's a little bit of a mix. I've learned some from reading books on French bio-intensive gardening, but we don't actually practice that method fully. I take different pieces of it that fit in with our form of gardening, where we're only able to garden whenever we can. If someone were gardening full time, we could make the crops more nutritious, and we could grow more, but we do what we can.

I started out doing that, and I was warned, "Well, you know, you can try that." [Laughs.] So I use it as a way to enrich the soil, and I take some of the other things they suggest, but it's just not possible for me to do them all.

Q: Have you made connections between Yogananda's teachings and your work in the garden?