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.
"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
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 were omnipresent. 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?
Establishment
I decided to use a system of ‘raised beds’, a soil layout designated to cultivate a dense population of plants and accumulate organic matter. The system is e.g used in urban farms in Cuba known as Organopónicos. One simply digs out pathways in-between growing beds, and naturally the soil bed will ‘rise’ as more soil is added. The bed has a fixed width of 75 cm – a good working width for a farming. The benefits of the raised bed infrastructure is that it enables a better drainage and a fixed indication for where the cultivation is happening, which means that the soil on the beds will not be compacted as persons will use the pathways for walking, so there will be a good build-up of topsoil year after year. I like the functionality of the raised beds, but I also find their composition really nice because they make the garden more accessible and open up the layout of the garden.
I had intended not to use machines ones the soil had been aerated and tilled once before establishment. The idea behind the method adapted from no-till farming methods and permaculture is that you leave the soil as undisturbed as possible but keep adding compost year after year in spring time. The important thing is to ensure that the soil is covered with plants which will retain the nutrient from leeking off.
The compost I used from Bio-kultura (https://www.bio-kultura.nl/) was very good, but also fairly expensive. I reckon cheaper options can be found near-by. I wanted the first batch to be really good quality weed-free compost. I used the compost bins in the garden momentarily but they had not been maintained properly and there wasn’t enough for the whole garden.
Seeds:
I learned from working with Wim that due to the ….. he cannot grow certain kinds of heirloom seeds and with the farmers protest happening across India early 2021 and the struggles for seed sovereignty across Africa and so many other places, made me think that caretakers of heirloom seeds are entangled with real acts of resistance, and that even tiny gardens hold a potential for safeguarding our seed cultures and knowledges of sovereignty that is carried from palm to soil to mouth.
List of heirloom seed companies:
- https://www.magicgardenseeds.com/
- https://kokopelli-semences.fr/fr/
- https://detuinenvanweldadigheid.nl/
Nurseries near-by Limburg:
- Wim Storken – is selling plants late spring and over the summer, you can ask for his special heirloom tomato varieties.
- Yvonne Velthuis – Wilde Planten Kwekerij has a lot of special heirloom varieties specific and regional for Limburg
complications
Map
maintenance and succession (future)
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 also a good idea to 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.