Make a garden before you build a house

Introduction

'Make a garden before you build a house' is a site-specific work carried out in the intermediate space between the JvE buildings in Maastricht. The garden is unearthed by artist Nickie Sigurdsson and maintained in cooperation with participants, five Indian runner ducks, private seeds savers, and with generous support and guidance from Wim Storken and Yvonne Velthuis.

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"Something that we never did during my studies in agriculture was questioning the act of cultivation itself. I have a lot of doubt about (call it) farming although I have a lot of desire towards peasantry as well. Both doubt and desire is hard for me to orientate myself in sometimes. I come to think of the cottage core movement circulating on the internet, where youngsters aesthetisize and dream of a queer community in the countryside opposing capitalist hegemonies once and for all. In reality they rarely take the step. I can relate to the romanticisation wrapped in inaction. Still, it is not an easy step to take, there are many obstacles which are very real when you don’t have any savings for example not to mention access to land. Anyway, something that I felt the urge to do was to embody the act of cultivating something as a way to carry thoughts through action, and identify the questioning which would undoubtedly emerge if I allowed it.

Luisa read me a text called advise for young farmers and in that text many sentences resonated with me but especially one stuck with me: ‘make a garden before you build a house’. Maybe it is because I have been subscribing to an uprooted and precarious lifestyle for the last few years, as many artistic practitioners, and therefore thoughts about dwelling have been particularly present. For me, the sentence also articulates a need for understanding and connecting with the environment, the soil, the critters dwelling there, before you build a house and maybe this act is a far more severe kind of homecoming.

JvE seemed like a good place to unearth a garden and other things too, especially because I had no actual monetary risk involved, which is exceptionally privileged because most young farmers have to in-debt themselves when they start farming. Another thing is that the garden had been left in abandonment after the former head of nature lab left the Academie, and I felt a silent invitation to mitigate an intentional act of caretaking to this tiny plot."

Text originally displayed during Jan Van Eyck Open studios written by Nickie Sigurdsson

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Early disclosure

(Reading the soil)

Before I did anything in the garden, I observed what was growing there in January 2021. I observed that the plot had been used for remnant of art projects, especially sand and limestone where to find a lot places. Someone also told me that the metal workshop had “leaked” metal waste in the ground whenever people would work outside.

• Nettle – (likes nitrogen rich soils)
• Blood sorrel – (acidic)
• Clover – (likes poor soils)
• Horseradish roots
• Bayleaf bush – looked really happy
• Greater celandine – (perennial, grows in rich moist soil with shadow, in forests or disturbed wastelands etc.) told me a lot about the composition about the soil, and the orientation of sun.
• Marble tree shoot – there was a lot of marble shoots, and it is common that if you leave a place for long enough a forest emerge after while.
• large sage roots – (had taken a lot of the space in the front, which revealed perhaps a sandy composition in that area, and opportunity for sun) the sage roots had not been pruned before the winter, and had suffered, although it was still growing some places.
• different kinds of mints and lemon verbena – pioneers, creates a lot of biomass in the soil due to the extensive root system.
• strawberries – rich soil, is ok with shadow
• moss – soil moist covered by foliage the wines.

I got that the soil was rich, but “disturbed” in the sense that several minerals had been added to it. It was moist, which explained the snail invasion. The blood sorrel revealed that the soil seemed to be relatively acid, while Greater celandine indicated that the topography was similar to that of a forest.

If the plot wants to become a forest why not let it? Would a forest be an ideal green space to the designated space in-between the buildings? What is the potential of a plot of land? And is it ok to intervene with what seems to be the natural agenda of the ecosystem?

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Procedures for maintenance

These are actions that would be good to do before the winter:

Cuttings: Perilla: is a Korean plant used for medicinal purposes and for seasoning. It has beautiful purple leaves. It will not survive the winter cold, so it is a good idea to take a few cuttings and out them in water on a windowsill. They will produce roots in six weeks, after which you can plant them in small pots before moving them outdoors in spring.

Pruning: Thai Basil: You can uproot some of the Thai basil plants and plant them indoors, and maybe cut the rest down until the plant gets woody. It might survive the winter.

all the woody herbs like rosemary, sage etc. like to be pruned before the winter. It is a good idea to also add a bit of hay around them.

Trimming: New Zealand Spinach: is perennial, and it is a good idea to trim the beds a little aka remove the weeds and cut them down a bit. They will come back next spring.