The Gospel According to M.R. Tumnus --- Productive Organic Vegetable Gardening in the Fraser Valley.

Gospel

[gos-puh l] /ˈgɒs pəl/
noun
1. the teachings of Jesus and the apostles; the Christian revelation.
2. the story of Christ's life and teachings, especially as contained in the first four books of the New Testament, namely Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The word Gospel is often translated as “Good news”  Please bear with me as I try to explain how it was used in the New Testament and then compare it to vegetable gardening.  The four Gospels are accounts of the life of Christ written by four very different men.  Each was not quite a biographical account as much as a message with a theme or agenda. Each was a perspective from a slightly different angle. ( I hope I’ve got most of this right.)


Matthew was a Jewish tax collector and disciple of Jesus.  Mark was believed to be the writer for the disciple Peter.  Luke was a gentile, a physician and an associate of the apostle Paul. John was Jesus’ best friend.  Matthew wanted to portray the Christ as the King so only his nativity account mentions the wise men searching for the new born king and coming to king Herod and all that entailed.  Matthew’s genealogy traces from Abraham through king David to Joseph.  Luke's account was written for another gentile.  Greeks gave more credence to women’s accounts so Luke’s nativity story mentions what Mary and Elizabeth go through and what the common shepherds witness (angels).  Luke’s genealogy starts at Joseph and runs backwards past Abraham to Adam (a gentile)  Mark is fast paced and always advancing in the story not mentioning the nativity at all.  John is a totally different person with a different perspective containing inside details of geography, politics and such.
 

Let me share just a bit more to show more differences. (and then I’ll get to gardening)  In the arrest scene, all four mention a sword being swung and an ear cut off but only the physician, Luke tells that Jesus healed it back on the guy who lost it. John is the only one to mention that when Jesus asks the mob, “Who is it you want?” “Jesus of Nazareth” they reply.  “I am he,” Jesus says. And then they all back away and fall down.  Mark is the only one to mention the mob grabbing a young man who flees by leaving his clothes behind – could this be Mark’s way of saying he was there too?  My point here is to show that each writer had a perspective different from the others.

As an organic vegetable gardener I have a specific, preferred emphasis.  That’s why this is the Gardening Gospel (good news) According to M.R. Tumnus.  My techniques are what have worked for me in this climate.  But I also follow a few “Gospel’ writers of Organic Vegetable Gardening.  And these I refer to often.

My Four Favourite Gardening Gospel Writers:
 

The first is Steve Solomon.  He is an organic gardener that started in Oregon in the 1970’s and was the founder of Territorial Seeds in Oregon. His book, “Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades” is very good and sums up a lot of the science and techniques that is needed in our climate.  We have his 6^th edition and he keeps tweaking and updating it to reveal even more things he has currently learned.  
 

The second is Eliot Coleman.  He is located in coastal Maine where the climate isn’t that very different from ours.  He’s an innovator and develops tools and techniques that have been developed and marketed through Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine.  Eliot’s book, “The New Organic Grower” is another necessity in my arsenal of information.  His greenhouses do something that my little one has done for years.  It’s good to see I had it right all along.  (but that’s another posting for another day)
 

The third is Jean-Martin Fortier.  He is a follower of Coleman, a younger, successful organic market gardener and his micro-farm is called ‘Les Jardins de la Grelinette’ (Broadfork Gardens) just south of Montreal.  His book “The Market Gardener” came out in English in 2014 and is an excellent read and resource.  He even confirmed a couple of my techniques that I’d been using for years, one that I hadn’t seen mentioned anywhere else.

 

The fourth is my son "The Organic Grower" (TOG).  He doesn’t really write but we talk gardening often.  He’s a successful organic market gardener with a Consumer Supported Agriculture (CSA) box program.  TOG with his dear wife and their young son and daughter farm 1.5 acres in the Fraser Valley.  They are a seasonal presence at local Farmer’s Markets and even supply a couple of higher end restaurants.  Over the last number of years TOG would pick my brain and ask me on how to grow this and that.  But the roles have changed and now I ask him questions.  He and I would discuss different vegetable gardens that we had seen and often we would conclude together: “They don’t know!”  I’m hoping to possibly change some of that with this blog.
 

 

Happy Vegetable Gardening,

 

M.R. Tumnus.

Hijacked!

As a teen growing up in Richmond in the early 1970’s, from my home several miles away I could watch the planes approaching the Vancouver airport in long lines.  Most often they were west bound using the east-west runway.  Occasionally, when the winds were contrary they would take off heading east on that same runway.  Rarely did they use the other diagonal runway.  But one sunny day when I was outside, a large airliner flew low right over our house heading southeast towards the States.  I knew that wasn’t normal, something was haywire.  Later I learned that it had been hijacked and was bound for Cuba.  Those where the days before security checks, when most everyone smoked on the plane, the flight attendants were called stewardesses who wore very short skirts and occasionally someone would board the plane with a gun and demand: “Tak me to Cooba”

 

Sadly it was about that time that the word Gardening was also hijacked.  Before then Gardening was about growing vegetables and if one grew flowers it was done in a flower bed or rose garden, not a Garden.  But times have changed and so have the books and periodicals on gardening.  In the seventies the Rodale Press magazine was called Organic Gardening and Farming.  Later the Farming was dropped and today it’s called Organic Living.  It now contains articles on flowers and water gardens and is full of recipes and pictures of people’s new kitchens and other feel good things. There’s a lot less vegetable gardening listed there now.

 

Today’s book stores and libraries have the same problem.  Oh so many books on growing everything but vegetables.  There are some good books on vegetable growing but they’re lost in the forest of other books.  Also there are a majority of vegetable books that are written in the mid-west, southern and eastern coast USA.  These are just not that useful for us in the coastal Pacific North West where the spring is often cool and wet and the summers dry and rainless.  Varieties of vegetables that may ripen and taste good in other parts of the continent may do poorly here in our Fraser Valley.  Or they may need special care and techniques to produce in our climate.

 

Here I hope to share my experiences, successes and even crop failures of my 35 years as a backyard organic vegetable grower.  It seems I never stop learning.  But I have acquired some valuable skills that can be shared with others who believe that Gardening should be about growing vegetables.  Perhaps others can use some of this information too.

 

Happy Gardening (vegetables that is)

M.R. Tumnus.