Seedfolks

Amir, who moved to Cleveland in 1980, contrasts the friendly cities of India to American cities, where no one knows their neighbors. For Amir, the garden is a place to break the cultural “rules” that maintain the isolation. He reflects on all the connections that the garden has fostered along Gibb Street and believes that the garden’s greatest benefit is helping others truly see their neighbors. In August, Amir and his family, who had grown eggplants, had the only purple fruits in the whole garden. This drew in many people who would never have spoken with them otherwise. He recalls helping strangers move tires after someone dumped a pile in the garden; he was also one of four gardeners who chased down a thief stealing a woman’s purse. He would not have done these things before the garden existed.

Amir explains that the garden enables people to overcome their prejudices and learn from one another. Amir has always known that Polish immigrants are the most common in Cleveland, but all he knew about Poles was that they ate cabbage. His plot is next to an old Polish woman’s, and when he observed that she does not thin her carrots as he does, she told him that doing so reminds her of the concentration camp she survived. Amir reflects that his stereotype of Polish people did not allow for nuance and that learning this fact about his neighbor expanded his idea of the many facets of people and cultures.

He remembers how young Royce, whom people first feared as a Black teenager, has worked and tended the garden, even building pathways and fences for people. Whereas, before, people avoided Royce and crossed the street when they saw him, they now see him as one of their own. Even an old Italian woman who once accused Amir of giving her incorrect change and called him a “dirty foreigner” is now friendly with him and complimentary of his eggplants.

Amir describes the joy of taking part in a harvest festival in which a Mexican family begins a matanza and invites the entire garden to share a roast pig. Gardeners show off their fall crops, exchange vegetables, and even give some away. The garden has taught people to overcome norms that prioritize separation and individual profit in favor of the deeper and older laws of sharing and community.

Because of her arthritis, Florence only watches the community garden. Her parents were formerly enslaved planters who left Louisiana in 1859 and walked to Colorado to get as far away from cotton country as they could. Her father called them “seed folk” because they were the first of their line to live in Gunnison County, Colorado, where Florence grew up. Watching the gardeners, Florence sees new seedfolk—the garden’s creators—on Gibb Street.

Florence feels that she’s part of the garden and cares for it so much that she is emboldened to say something when she sees someone try to take a tomato off a vine. She is excited to see the community hopeful and working together toward a shared goal, but by winter, all of the plants have died. Even though someone places a Christmas tree in the middle of the lot, Florence feels the empty garden is a sad sight. She worries that the city will sell the lot, that people will become disinterested after the cold weather, or even that the lot may become a dump again. However, just as she cannot see Canada across Lake Erie but knows it is there, Florence knows spring will come again. On a fine day in April, she leaves her house to enjoy the spring air and sees Kim in the garden again, planting lima beans. Florence looks up at another observer, an old man in a rocker, and they wave to one another in excitement, each knowing that the garden, like the community, is there to stay.