Black Gardening
Coleman E. Howard
African-American viewpoints on gardening. Any sites you can direct me
to?
Coleman E. Howard
zhanataya
Gardening like sex is an activity that doesn't suffer from racial
bias. We all enjoy it.
zhan
madgard
"zhanataya" <billz...@vol.com> wrote in message
news:0tkq4v0isp1q1dhkd...@4ax.com...
Michelle Hartner
African-American home repair. Pretty sure he's a troll, guys.
"Coleman E. Howard" <ceho...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:3e4cfa08...@free.teranews.com...
paghat
(Coleman E. Howard) wrote:
The Georgia Cotton Plantation Society?
The District of Columbia Lawn-Jocky Club?
But seriously.
The Big Lick Garden Club is the oldest continuously meeting black
gardening club, & meets in Roanoke, corner of Lynchburg Ave. & E-4th St,
in a small historical building built in 1837. There are black gardening
clubs in most major cities -- if there's a black neighborhood, there's a
black garden club. As for websites, I just did a quick search & couldn't
find that any of these clubs maintain websites, so you're gonna have to go
out into the actual world & hang out with actual gardeners. Unless you
live in a "blackless" suburb it should be easy. If your community has a
black-run newspaper (Seattle's is called "The Facts"), you'll find
announcements of garden clubs that are at least defacto black gardening
clubs because of the neighborhood they're in, & a few, especially in the
South, will be consciously culturally African American garden clubs. Hook
up with any of these, then YOU create the webpage! You can provide a web
presence for such gardening organizations to connect & as a central
clearinghouse for articles & research & information. There are many
really fascinating topics that could be covered at such a website if you
pursued this, & you could put many of the apropos regional clubs in
contact with each other & get new members to the garden clubs.
Despite my jesting allusion to the obnoxioius lawn jocky, there actually
are respectful pride-oriented African American lawn ornaments, marketed by
a company called Afro-Kin (see musefinds.com). Instead of a lawn jocky
you can get an angel with black features, in your choice of skin tones
from yaller to pure African.
I'm half Jew on the paternal & mongrel on the maternal side, so this isn't
"my" topic except insofar as any Civil Libertarian had BETTER be
interested in such things, but it's a topic I find interesting. From a
honky point of view, I can say the topic you're interested in is
potentially very important. African Americans even in slave days were
famous gardeners (they wouldn't be fed much of quality if they hadn't
grown their own veggies) & their choices & methods strongly influenced
gardening throughout Europe & American, & were responsible for many plant
introductions. George "Peanut" Washington Carver is often treated by
history books as some kind of weird exception to African American
interests, but he had a thoroughly black cultural context for his work. A
garden consisting just of plants introduced by African Americans is shown
here:
http://4hgarden.msu.edu/tour/20.html
or try here if you have Flash on your computer:
http://4hgarden.msu.edu/main.html
This garden was constructed by kids involved in 4H in Michigan.
There's also the African American Garden Project at Pittsburgh founded in
1996 with help of the Three Rivers Arts Festival, & the African American
Cultural Gardens founded in 1977 by the African American Garden
Organization (supplanted by the AA Garden Federation), but I couldn't find
pictures of these on the web, & don't know if they still exist. Even if
they're just history, someone with a real interest in this stuff should do
the research & bring it all together AS history. In the wake of the
University of Michigan's African American Garden planted by children &
volunteers, schools, horiticultural clubs, & public gardens have made
noises of creating new AA Gardens -- Pueblo Gardens in Tucson for example
wants volunteers to establish sundry ethnic garden areas, & Westminster
Memorial Park (an historical segregated cemetery in California) has been
making noises about adding an African American Garden. Temporary African
American gardens are frquently planted by gradeschool children as a fun
learning event that lasts an entire school year. The Bexar County Master
Gardeners establish an A-A Garden in San Antonio, with the assistance of
over two dozen master gardeners who came from Georgia to get it started,
incorporating the knowledge of black elders in San Antonio plus involving
children as gardeners (as an extension of their general "wee tots &
elders" gardening projects). I would call it quite a fad, but it's an area
of cultural & historical interest that is not being neglected.
Check out this web page for the sculptures & plants Civil Rights Garden of
Atlantic City New Jersey :
http://digitalphotos1.tripod.com/index.html
It was founded in 1904.
Here's a lovely page from the University of Illinois, about African
American gardening traditions, including some remarkable photographs:
http://www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/la/LA437-F95/final/yan/main2.html
The author of this page is Chinese, & ends his monograph with an appeal
for A HANDBOOK FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN GARDENING reflecting the old
traditions & distinct cultural elements. A handbook does not yet exist
that I'm aware of, but there's one important academic book on the subject,
AFRICAN AMERICAN GARDENS IN THE RURAL SOUTH by Richard Westmacott, which
is riddled with quotations from extensive interviews with southern rural
gardeners. One of Professor Westmacott's students has added to the
overview with IN SEARCH OF A GARDEN: AFRICAN AMERICANS & THE LAND, by
Elise Eugenia LeMaistre. See also THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDENING entry
under "African American Gardening."
A recurring feature of African American gardens is the "swept ground" &
rock boundary surroundings, without lawn turf. It doesn't take a lot of
thinking to figure out why Americans with African heritage might not be as
much into surrounding their gardens with lawns as are Europeans -- it just
wouldn't be the method inherited from Africa. African American gardens
also feature plants with "magic" properties, whether or not the magic is
still believed in. Found objects & natural roots seem also to be de
rigour, as well as some of the most remarkable home-made ornaments & folk
art treasures, or found objects painted to render them into art. Robert
Farris Thompson on Black Art (quoted at the University of Illinois page
cited above) says these garden displays are carried over unchanged from
"the philosophical values of classical Kongo culture." We might add taht
artists long deprived of gallery exhibition either because they are
"outsider artists" or due to outright racism, had only their gardens
wherein to exhibit.
I trust others than myself can see the emotional, political, cultural,
social & artistic POWER that underlies this topic, & I'd be as eager to
tour African American Gardens as I would Japanese Tea Gardens.
Here's a news bit about an African American Garden that has been around
for over a century & only recently threatened by demolition & development:
> WEEKSVILLE, AN HISTORIC AFRICAN-AMERICAN GARDEN
> Weeksville is not the typical site of of a demolished abandoned building,
> but a garden that has cultivated since at least the 19th century. Its fate
> has been cavalierly discussed behind closed doors for a couple of years now.
> The Weeksville garden could be a wonderful showcase for African-American
> horti/cultural history. Instead, politicians with close ties to developers
> have been maneuvering to have it destroyed.
> The City of New York has submitted an application in Kings County Supreme
> Court to acquire property for the Crown Heights 4th Amended Urban renewal
> Plan which includes and completely surrounds the historic houses and garden
> at Society for the Preservation of Weeksville (Brooklyn Block 1356 lots
> 19,21,22,23). The garden is already city owned, so it is unclear what the
> timeframe for construction of this project is. This garden is also
> threatened by development under HPD's Neighborhood Builders Program, and was
> listed in the July 1998 HPD RFQ. We understand that the RFQ was withdrawn,
> but Weeksville is back again on the active development lists.
--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/
paghat
<mad...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> HERE HERE!!!!!!!!!!!
There are many culturarly-specific issues to Hopi gardening, Japanese
gardening, & so on, including African American gardening. A question such
as Coleman posed in a largely white-dominated arena could well be designed
to sort out the bleeding hearts from the closet racists, but the real
problem would not be with the question. It would be that people don't
often enough think very deeply about things that don't effect them, & so
have kneejerk reactions without ever bothering to figure out that there
ARE culturally specific topics in gardening; culturally specific history
to gardening; & culturally specific methods of gardening that even white
folk could learn from or appreciate.
Now if I felt I couldn't visit the African American Garden because I'm not
black, I might be seriously annoyed. But to doubt there are cultural
issues black folk might share with one another about gardening? I don't
doubt that for a second. And weather or not Coleman asked the question in
a mood of integrity & need, the answer wouldn't right be "Your needs prove
you're biased" (read "a reverse racist").
Here are the African Goddesses who guard one entrance to our gardens:
http://www.paghat.com/knickknack.html
-paghat the ratgirl
--
paghat
<billz...@vol.com> wrote:
As well to say God is universal therefore we don't need any dumbass
synogogues or mosques, christian churches are enough.
Your complaint would apply only if you weren't even welcome in the
synogogue or the African American Garden. I have no reason to believe you
wouldn't be would, so wouldn't be too hasty to fault the query.
-paghat the ratgirl
zhanataya
(paghat) wrote:
>As well to say God is universal therefore we don't need any dumbass
>synogogues or mosques, christian churches are enough.
>
>Your complaint would apply only if you weren't even welcome in the
>synogogue or the African American Garden. I have no reason to believe you
>wouldn't be would, so wouldn't be too hasty to fault the query.
>
>-paghat the ratgirl
Good Grief Pagger. Take a breath, find a sense of humor and get off
the soap box before you hurt yourself.
David Modine
GardenWeb Forums
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/#title
David, whose gardens are mostly green
Judy and Dave G
TROLL ALERT - even if the issue could be elegantly debated!
Judy
"Coleman E. Howard" <ceho...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:3e4cfa08...@free.teranews.com...
Julia Green
> bias. We all enjoy it.
Yahbut, I bet the OP is interested in the ethno-cultural historical aspects
of gardening. Which is a perfectly legit avenue of exploration....
Julia Green
"Michelle Hartner" <mhar...@epicsys.com> wrote in message
news:tcc3a.3399$6a2.1...@kent.svc.tds.net...
paghat
<billz...@vol.com> wrote:
Good grief Zhan. Take a breath & find a sense of humor.
But of course humor is in the mind's eye. I thought my "dumbass synogogue"
remark to you & my "Lawn Jocky Club" remark to Coleman (both against my
own interests) were pretty funny, whereas you seem to have thought
dismissing interest in social culture-&-horticulture as a racist bias (or
dismissing any degree of substance regarding the topic as soapboxing) is
just terribly funny. If you equally deplore substance even on topics you
DO care about then maybe that's balanced & fair, but for me the jest
doesn't necessarily have to exist INSTEAD of substance. It can't be only
be a matter of "you like your jokes but not mine, & I like mine but not
yours," as I can laugh fine with PJ O'Rourke's obnoxiously wrongwing
comedies.
Perhaps some of it boils down to I can't invariably appreciate your
conservative jesting or even always recognize it as jest (since I still
can't see what you thought was funny dismissing an interesting query as
race bias), just as you can failed to recognize my liberal jesting even
when it's over-the-top satiric allusions to faith that I take seriously as
dumbass, or to racist garden statuary as a club insignia, which to me seem
much harder jests to have zip past anyone's head & mistaken for
over-serious. All of which goes to show that sometimes it really IS nice
to get together just with folks who share a similar cultural context &
experience, where everyone can get each others' jokes without turning it
into a "funnier than thou" conversation deploring substance.
Coleman could well be whiter than a maggot feasting in a bucket of Crisco,
but if there WAS a good website on african american gardening, I'd
bookmark it & watch it for updates, as on this one I get to be in the
right -- it's an interesting & worthwhile subject -- & I'd feel enriched
merely to know a little bit more about the many gardened plants &
techniques that come to us through a black cultural tradition. When I
noted that the best website on African American Gardens was written by a
Chinese gardener -- I noted that because I found it pleasingly ironic &
worthy of a smile. That you find all that humorless doesn't have much to
do with my sense of humor.
-paggers
nob...@junk.min.net
>Are there any black gardening organizations? I'm interested
>African-American viewpoints on gardening. Any sites you can direct me
>to?
Hey, buddy,
Why not call one of the local garden centers (Garland's, maybe?)
Alan
--
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paghat
[clips]
> Coleman could well be whiter than a maggot feasting in a bucket of
> american gardening, I'd bookmark it & watch it for updates,
Well shame on me. Coleman is a one helluva good lookin' old dude, sincere
of expression, & black in the bargain:
http://users.erols.com/clbphoto/pic4.jpg
I should be less easily influenced by fellow gardeners who so easily
dismiss an honest soul as a troll. Only the post-&-vanish aspect of the
query made me think the folks dismissing him as a troll MIGHT be onto
something, but they weren't. It was just another way to disparage a
potentially important topic, & over a query so innocuous, polite, & simple
really. Guess us white devils only rarely have a clue!
-paghat the ratgirl
zhanataya
To start with you have no idea what my ethnic heritage is. Just as in
your response to Maddies post you wrote this is a predominately white
group. How did you come to that conclusion? We identify ourselves
with name zone and locale. Not color. I didn't dismiss anything as
racial bias. Coleman said he was interested in Africian-American
viewpoints on gardening. I can assure you Africian-Americans
viewpoint is the same as all other gardeners in the world. Supply the
plant with what it needs in order to thrive.
Garden designs is an entirely different discussion.
zhan
gregpresley
about local black gardeners or farmers. They had a lot of terrific lore
about when to plant certain crops, (and when NOT to plant), when
to water, when to harvest (especially things like collard greens - after
the first frost.....). Also in the South Carolina and Georgia low country,
there were "swept" lawns in some black neighborhoods. Hard packed clay dirt,
swept clean daily - no vegetation allowed.(Maybe too many up close and
personal experiences with snakes, who knows....). Jake Gaither had a famous
collection of camellias in Tallahassee. And of course, Geroge Washington
Carver - someone we could all learn from about soil improvement........
force
> In article , pag...@BADSPAMnetscape.net (paghat) wrote:
> [clips]
> > Coleman could well be whiter than a maggot feasting in a bucket of
> > rancid Crisco, but if there WAS a good website on african
> > american gardening, I'd bookmark it & watch it for updates,
> > as it's an interesting & worthwhile subject
>
> Well shame on me. Coleman is a one helluva good lookin' old dude, sincere
> of expression, & black in the bargain:
> http://users.erols.com/clbphoto/pic4.jpg
> I should be less easily influenced by fellow gardeners who so easily
> dismiss an honest soul as a troll. Only the post-&-vanish aspect of the
> query made me think the folks dismissing him as a troll MIGHT be onto
> something, but they weren't. It was just another way to disparage a
> potentially important topic, & over a query so innocuous, polite, & simple
> really. Guess us white devils only rarely have a clue!
>
> -paghat the ratgirl
Miss ratgirl, I am sure the REAL COLEMAN would appreciate your kind
comments, but the truth of the matter is, the post is a pure forgery.
Coleman didn't post the message "Black Gardening" in fact, Coleman
doesn't post anymore to the internet, only in selected motorcycle
newgroups,and then only a few.
Once again, in PLAIN BOLD LETTERS:
THE POST WITH THE TOPIC OF "BLACK GARDENING" IS A COMPLETE FORGERY,
PUT THERE BY BYKER AND BROJACK..
force
Zemedelec
gardening and occasionally writes on plants for the New Yorker? Grrrrr---can't
get the name off the tip of my tongue, but she'd know them all, for sure.
zemedelec
Iris Cohen
whole category, ethnobotany, which studies the relationships between different
cultural groups & plants. Nothing racist about it. If you do a Web browser
search on African American gardening, you will find several entries.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)
zhanataya
There are several gardens, Zen, and Cottage commonly associated with
England come to mind. These type on gardens typically evolve from a
group of people that share a common culture, language and climatic
conditions.
Africa has climatic zones ranging from 1 to 11. A hundred different
languages, and its people were variously farmers, herders and hunters.
To gather under an umbrella and label the rich and diversive
contributions they've made to the American gardening experience as
African-American is insensitive and dismissive at best.
A family may grow and maintain a particular plant because of its
association with their ancestors and where they originated. Whereas
their neighbors, who also may be black haven't a clue what the plant
is or why they are growing it.
zhan
ed
one sentence?
Big Head Ed
"paghat" <pag...@BADSPAMnetscape.net> wrote in message
news:paghat-1402...@soggy72.drizzle.com...
paghat
<billz...@vol.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 16:26:34 -0700, pag...@BADSPAMnetscape.net
> (paghat) wrote:
>
> >> Good Grief Pagger. Take a breath, find a sense of humor and get off
> >> the soap box before you hurt yourself.
> >
> >Perhaps some of it boils down to I can't invariably appreciate your
> >conservative jesting or even always recognize it as jest (since I still
> >can't see what you thought was funny dismissing an interesting query as
> >race bias), just as you can failed to recognize my liberal jesting even
> >when it's over-the-top satiric allusions to faith that I take seriously as
> >dumbass, or to racist garden statuary as a club insignia, which to me seem
> >much harder jests to have zip past anyone's head & mistaken for
> >over-serious. All of which goes to show that sometimes it really IS nice
> >to get together just with folks who share a similar cultural context &
> >experience, where everyone can get each others' jokes without turning it
> >into a "funnier than thou" conversation deploring substance.
> >
> >-paggers
>
> To start with you have no idea what my ethnic heritage is. Just as in
> your response to Maddies post you wrote this is a predominately white
> group. How did you come to that conclusion? We identify ourselves
> with name zone and locale. Not color.
>
> zhan
To start with, I never asked & have no specific need to know what YOUR
ethnic heritage is. Now that YOU make it an issue, I would assume honky,
but never thought about it one way or the other before.
As for Maddy, she has in the past posted very openly & honestly about such
things as, for example, her father going to his grave a racist bigot, to
her sorrow. Many others have posted revealingly on such topics. Many have
even posted their photographs on the web, & I visit everyone's websites
because I like many of the folks here & am interested in their gardens BUT
ALSO IN whatever they care to share about their lives. I correspond with
several off the group. If there are more than a tiny handful of black folk
in this newsgroup I'll eat your filthy shorts.
So you've revealed only that you're not paying attention.
My immediate neighborhood, gardeners in every house, are East Indians,
Chinese, White & African American. POSSIBLY whites may SLIGHTLY outnumber
the others combined, but not certain, as many of the households are
interacial. Yet when I go to nearby meetings of the rhododendron society,
the master gardener program events, major gardening sales, & so on, black
faces are either 100% absent, or awfully few -- the make-up of the
community is not reflected at these events & clubs. So even if I didn't in
fact know the ethnic heritage of many in this newsgroup by their own
declarations, I would at least suspect that ethnic gardening is rarely
mentioned here because gardening does NOT inherently create a sense of
community that is ethnically diverse, which is why you've gotten the
ridiculous impression & can seriously posit that race doesn't matter. It
doesn't matter to whom it doesn't effect. It in fact does matter -- it
matters for POSITIVE reasons of diversity, & for unfortunate reasons of
racism. I would rather focus on the positive reasons of diversity. But I
can understand that people of color do sometimes need to forge their own
communities to not be persistantly insulted by people who may not INTEND
to be so ignorant of these matters, but who are nevertheless blatant about
their ignorance, & resistant to learning.
When there are exceptions, they are great to know about. In San Antonio,
the projects to create unique public gardens reflecting Mexican, Asian,
Native American, & African American gardening traditions, & the outreach
within the "Tots & Elders" program that involve gardeners of all races &
ages -- but value in particular the cultural & traditional wisdom of
elders within their ethnic communities -- has enriched everyone involved.
By ignoring these issues you DO say (by omission) that diversity isn't
welcome. By insisting (by comission) that all gardeners are the same, you
encourage an environment of sameness -- & that sameness, given the nature
of America, will end up being predominantly white.
> I didn't dismiss anything as
> racial bias.
When you criticized the Coleman Forger for bringing up the topic you
yourself used the word "bias". The topic was black cultural heritage &
gardening. But I'll take your word for it that in your mind, dismissing
ethnic topics as "biased" is not what you meant when you dismissed them as
biased.
The sad thing is, the Coleman Forger wanted this very response -- to get
liberals & conservatives at each others' throats. That Byker, a notorious
white trash racist of the worst order of humanity, can so easily mess with
minds without even being rude isn't actually Byker's fault. He's just
smart enough to know it DOES matter so VERY MUCH that it only takes the
tiniest nudge to get SOMEone screaming that the very topic is on some
level inappriate & biased.
>Coleman said he was interested in Africian-American
> viewpoints on gardening. I can assure you Africian-Americans
> viewpoint is the same as all other gardeners in the world. Supply the
> plant with what it needs in order to thrive.
It seems to me your kneejerk response was one part personal disinterest of
this topic & nine parts hostility toward anyone who might be interested in
it, because what you've just stated is so fantastically untrue it's just
unbelievable that you've convinced yourself it is true. I could refer you
to Professor Westmacott's study of African American gardening if you wish
to have a knowledgeable opinion in the future. I'm NOT saying you're a bad
person to now already have some semblance of this knowledge; but it would
be bad to continue not to care when confronted with an inkling of the
truth.
Both in plant choices & cultivation methods, garden myths & garden
arrangements, there are cultural & traditional reasons that Mexican
gardening, Native American gardening, Japanese gardening, & African
American gardening have distinct features born of distinct cultural,
historical, geographical & even political reasons (i.e., land ownership
has always been politicized & effects how people garden or if they even
have access to a place TO garden). Some features most gardeners will
indeed share in common -- a fondness for their plants primarily -- &
diversity doesn't have to mean division.
As Iris calmly & rationally pointed out, ethnobotany is a big topic. At my
webpages I allude to ethnic cultural associations of many of the plants I
grow in my gardens because this stuff interests me a great deal. I'm truly
sorry the topic got you mad at me personally. But as it IS a topic of
interest to me, even Byker's forgery of Coleman was good enough cause to
post useful information about African American gardening techniques,
history, regional clubs, & visitable African American heritaga gardens in
Michigan, New Jersey, & San Antonio.
-paghat the ratgirl
paghat
> On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 18:14:14 -0700, pag...@BADSPAMnetscape.net
> (paghat) wrote:
>
> >In article , pag...@BADSPAMnetscape.net (paghat) wrote:
> >[clips]
> >> Coleman could well be whiter than a maggot feasting in a bucket of
> >> rancid Crisco, but if there WAS a good website on african
> >> american gardening, I'd bookmark it & watch it for updates,
> >> as it's an interesting & worthwhile subject
> >
> >Well shame on me. Coleman is a one helluva good lookin' old dude, sincere
> >of expression, & black in the bargain:
> >http://users.erols.com/clbphoto/pic4.jpg
> >I should be less easily influenced by fellow gardeners who so easily
> >dismiss an honest soul as a troll. Only the post-&-vanish aspect of the
> >query made me think the folks dismissing him as a troll MIGHT be onto
> >something, but they weren't. It was just another way to disparage a
> >potentially important topic, & over a query so innocuous, polite, & simple
> >really. Guess us white devils only rarely have a clue!
> >
> >-paghat the ratgirl
>
> Coleman E Howard also frequently posts using the nickname of Swift
> Rider. If you believed that Coleman is just a gentle, polite elderly
> Black Man you should do a Google search on the name Swift Rider. He
> is, in fact, a blatant Black racist. Many also believe that his posts
> reveal him to be either a closet or open sexual deviant.
I read some of Coleman's older posts yesterday slowly figuring out he no
longer posts to UseNet. I saw that too many posts under his name were
forgeries detectable by the incorrect return email lines. And I indeed saw
him ripping into forgers & into sundry UseNut scumbags & overt racists,
like an avenging angel, until he got sick of 'em & like too many
intelligent people surrounded by dumbasses, moved on to e-lists where the
scum are weeded out. Personally I've always enjoyed a bit of scum, but do
understand how it all grows tiresome after a while. And if you're also
worried he might be a faggot, well if he is, that'd be GREAT; if he's
single I'll introduce him to my nephew Charles.
paghat
<gpre...@iea.com> wrote:
The swept ground look of traditional African American gardening is one of
the things that intrigues me. The literature on the topic suggests it
originated in African supersitions about spirits living in grass & bushes,
& sweeping an area clean immediately around the house to keep spirits at
bay, requiring gardens to be placed some little distance from the home.
Myths of haunted shrubbery are nearly universal. Once during kabbalistic
studies I wrote up an essay on demons-in-bushes myths as referred to
especially in the Babylonian talmud. There may be a slight tendency to
assume everything African Americans do that is unique is because they're
superstitious, but in fact ANYone's heritage is full of myths that
influence the choices we make & our deepest philosophical points of view.
Such myths aren't mere superstition either. Europeans planting stuff right
up to the edge of their cottages was easy when they had much fewer worries
about deadly scorpions, sure-death spider bites, and (as you suspected)
lurking vipers. So it was actually rational to keep the area closest to
the home swept packed earth. And telling tales of demons living in the
bushes is something that warned children out of trouble's way.
Yet it's also interesting that tradition does not easily die, & after a
couple hundred years in America among people of European heritage who do
it so differently, the black tradition of swept-earth instead of lawns
continues in the rural south, where the poisonous snakes live predomantly
near waterways & there's no hugely "practical" reason for swept-earth
gardening. But it in fact very often results in a beautiful garden
appearance, gardens surrounded by swept clean dirt paths, & therefore no
big reason to change what is aesthetic & has cultural resonance. If more
people did it that way, summer Saturdays in so many neighborhoods wouldn't
be marred by roaring smelly lawnmowers all up & down the block.
zhanataya
(paghat) wrote:
>
>To start with, I never asked & have no specific need to know what YOUR
>ethnic heritage is. Now that YOU make it an issue, I would assume honky,
>but never thought about it one way or the other before.
Honky paghat?? Surprising you didn't write kike. Being well versed
in delivering offensive insults is not a talent I aspire to possess.
You may retain your crown unchallenged.
paghat
<billz...@vol.com> wrote:
Just call me Paghat the KikeDyke, wouldn't hurt MY feelings.
I'm very sorry you're so angry, incapable of substance, or even measured
or honest responses, & still a little surprised such a humorless soul has
the audacity to charge OTHERS with a lack of any sense of humor. But I do
thank you for the excuse to repost the following lexiconical comedy of
reality:
THE ORIGINS OF HONKY:
1) Honky: Also sometimes "Conky" probably a contraction of "cracker
honky." Originally southern black slang, a slur for any uneducated racist
white man. It appears earliest to have been used by the sex trade in the
Deep South. It indicated the kind of rural white guys who drove to the
inner city specifically in search of black prostitutes. Such men would
drive along a promenade of hookers & honk their horn at whichever hooker
they wanted to come give them a b-j. The sex workers would answer to these
"honkers" or "honkies." The term migrated from the sex trade into the
lexicon of "colored slang" generally & especially via travelling musicians
of the big band era spread ultimately to white people themselves, who
coopted the term in becoming proud to regard themselves as proud redneck
"honkytonk men."
2) Tracking the definitive origins of black slang is never a sure thing
but many linguists have made it a specialty. The most often repeated
"origin" of the word is that it was shortened from honkytonk, i.e., any
bar or roadhouse that provides a background soundtrack of western tunes to
go with the drunken brawls of clumsy meatfisted white guys, these
honkytonk drunkards becoming popularly known as honkies.
This commonly accepted origin only partially pans out on closer
investigation. Originally, "honkytonk" applied to ragtime,
stride, & boogywoogy -- honkytonk ragtime had non-white patronage at a
time when "honky" already indicated a cracker seeking black pussy.
"Honkytonk" is parallel black slang derived from the sound of syncopated
pounding on the keys of cheap tinny pianos. Very likely the jazzy
roadhouses were simultaneously places where "honkies" (i.e., horny white
guys seeking black pussy) would hang out around the rear doors making
arrangements with pimps. When ragtime & boogywoogy music styles faded
from dominance, the once-jazzy roadhouses turned to country music, lost
their sophisticated, black, or youth clientelle, & only the honkies remained.
Note that the term honky for a cracker honking his horn for a black whore
developed separately from honkytonk as a term for syncopated jazz -- both
terms converged in the country-western scene as bars that formerly played
southern ragtime turned to c-w & traded a more diverse, hip, & intelligent
clientelle for those honkies who used to consort only in the bars' alleys
with pimps & whores.
3) A less likely theory places the origin of the word farther North as a
from the Slavic "hunky" for Hungarian or "bohunk" for Pole, perjoratives
initially applied to poor, illiterate immigrants from all over central
Europe. Blacks adapted this as honky for all whites. This seems unlikely
to me except that it shows how easily sound-alike terms can converge &
some slang survives because it already sounds familiar as it migrates
across the land.
4) A third, easily harmonized "level" of "origin" dates the slang "Tonk"
to the era of mechanical pianos & mechanical orchestras & the first
"punched disc" juke boxes. You dropped a coin in & they made the sound
"tonk" before the music began. Just as rock & roll was black music that
became popular among whites when Pat Boone started blanding it out, so too
the black musical idiums were first heard by whites in these "tonk"
machines. Since term "Honky" was already in wide use among blacks to
indicate any white person whatsoever, black music rendered pathetically
automated for tacky white folks was called "honky's tonk." The cheap
tinniness of this automated music sounded similar to music played by
itinerant jazzmen in the worst venues upon out of tune pianos, hence the
transfer of "honkies' tonk" to indicate ragtime or barrelhouse music --
followed by the rest of the development as outlined above to indicate
country western venue.
5) As it is not really known HOW old a term "honky" is, some have
speculated it might go as far back as slave days & predates any use of
"honkytonk." Just as whites sometimes think black dialect sounds
incomprehensible, so too the self-important blatherings of white people
sounded to blacks like the honking of white geese. Since a bunch of jabbering
white people do indeed sound exactly like a waddling pack of slug-eating
domestic geese, they were naturally referred to by their black laborers as
"honkies." By this theory even "honky-tonky" is just doubling the sound of
the white goose.
The interesting thing is that ALL these theories EXCEPT the link to
"bohunk" can well be simultaneously true without conflicting.
Polar
>I was intrigued by the idea, as I had never given it much thought. There is a
>whole category, ethnobotany, which studies the relationships between different
>cultural groups & plants. Nothing racist about it. If you do a Web browser
>search on African American gardening, you will find several entries.
I saw a fantastic Black Garden at the Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh.
Had never heard of such a thing before; most impressive! Somehow
connected with the Prince of Wales, I think, but can't remember the
reference.
--
Polar
Polar
wrote:
Follow-up: Ouch, am I confused. I thought we were talking about
black *plants*, not black *people".
(Note to self: Read thread before posting!)
--
Polar
TOM KAN PA
blooms or foliage.
gregpresley
slavery - some were native to Africa, and some quickly became staples there
after Columbus' voyage to the Americas. These crops included peanuts, yams,
black-eyed peas, watermelon, okra, etc., and it was the black slaves'
understanding of how to cultivate rice that first made them attractive to
slave owners of the deep South.
gregpresley
"zhanataya" <billz...@vol.com> wrote in message > Africa has climatic
zones ranging from 1 to 11. A hundred different
> languages, and its people were variously farmers, herders and hunters.
> To gather under an umbrella and label the rich and diversive
> contributions they've made to the American gardening experience as
> African-American is insensitive and dismissive at best.
This would be true, zhan, were it not also true that the vast majority of
the ancestors of today's African-Americans came from only one region of
Africa - West Africa to be precise. It is true that Arab slave-peddlers
scoured the inland regions of Africa for slaves, but travel was difficult on
that continent, so those forays did not result in the same large numbers as
people who were taken from areas closer to the coast. European peoples did
not penetrate the interior regions of Africa until the 19th century - so it
really doesn't matter what climate regions were found THERE, in terms of
what farming traditions were brought to the new world. Cultivation of yams,
okra, rice, black-eyed peas, watermelon and peanuts were all crops of humid
tropical and subtropical climates that could and did cross the Atlantic with
the slaves to become the farm products of the deep South.
DKat
homogenous population (kinda like Britian). So while you can have a
"Japanese" garden or a "English Country" garden you don't have "white"
gardens, "Russian" gardens, "Chinese" gardens, etc. Africa has incredible
wealth in cultures, climates, environments, etc. So if what you refer to
when you say "Black" is to a people who can claim some heritage from the
African Continent I cannot even begin to image what that garden would be
anymore than I could imagine a "White" or an "Asian" garden.
The couple we bought our home from in Conneticut were "black". I have no
idea what their culture was but I do know that she and I had the same taste
in gardening which pleased me to no end. Genetic testing has shown that we
are all real close to being cousins and the best thing for our genetic
future is to stop inbreeding and start mixing both cultures and "black",
"white", and "asian" genes.
DK
"paghat" <pag...@BADSPAMnetscape.net> wrote in message
news:paghat-1402...@soggy72.drizzle.com...
> In article <jMa3a.3136$s12...@fe03.atl2.webusenet.com>, "madgard"
> <mad...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > HERE HERE!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> There are many culturarly-specific issues to Hopi gardening, Japanese
> gardening, & so on, including African American gardening. A question such
> as Coleman posed in a largely white-dominated arena could well be designed
> to sort out the bleeding hearts from the closet racists, but the real
> problem would not be with the question. It would be that people don't
> often enough think very deeply about things that don't effect them, & so
> have kneejerk reactions without ever bothering to figure out that there
> ARE culturally specific topics in gardening; culturally specific history
> to gardening; & culturally specific methods of gardening that even white
> folk could learn from or appreciate.
>
> Now if I felt I couldn't visit the African American Garden because I'm not
> black, I might be seriously annoyed. But to doubt there are cultural
> issues black folk might share with one another about gardening? I don't
> doubt that for a second. And weather or not Coleman asked the question in
> a mood of integrity & need, the answer wouldn't right be "Your needs prove
> you're biased" (read "a reverse racist").
>
> Here are the African Goddesses who guard one entrance to our gardens:
> http://www.paghat.com/knickknack.html
>
> -paghat the ratgirl
>
>
> > "zhanataya" <billz...@vol.com> wrote in message
> > news:0tkq4v0isp1q1dhkd...@4ax.com...
> > > On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 14:15:38 GMT, ceho...@erols.com (Coleman E.
> > > Howard) wrote:
> > >
> > > >Are there any black gardening organizations? I'm interested
> > > >African-American viewpoints on gardening. Any sites you can direct
me
> > > >to?
> > > >
> > > >Coleman E. Howard
> > >
> > > Gardening like sex is an activity that doesn't suffer from racial
> > > bias. We all enjoy it.
> > >
> > > zhan
paghat
<disi...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry I don't follow.
> if what you refer to
> when you say "Black" is to a people who can claim some heritage from the
> African Continent I cannot even begin to image what that garden would be
If you'd like to correct that inability, this webpage:
http://www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/la/LA437-F95/final/yan/main2.html
might help. That's about African American gardening & it's written by a
Chinese American shows that one doesn't have to be black to show an
interest in ethnic gardening of any stripe or color. If the webpage
catches your intellect on fire, as it should, you might want to continue
with Professor Richard Westmacott's book on African American Gardening
which will catch you up.
>
> The couple we bought our home from in Conneticut were "black". I have no
> idea what their culture was but I do know that she and I had the same taste
> in gardening which pleased me to no end. Genetic testing has shown that we
> are all real close to being cousins and the best thing for our genetic
> future is to stop inbreeding and start mixing both cultures and "black",
> "white", and "asian" genes.
Genes don't necessary equal culture, but they don't rule it out either.
-paggers
> DK
zhanataya
wrote:
What you say is all true. But their contributions didn't stop with
the Emancipation Proclamation. And not all slaves came directly to the
US. Many when they were transported here brought along ideas
influenced by where they were enslaved previously.
My response to the OP was addressing plant care, which I thought he
was asking about, not garden designs to which this thread has mostly
degenerated.
I agree about the southern farm products and am grateful. Yams,
black-eyes, and watermelons being favorites of mine.
zhan
zhanataya
(paghat) wrote:
>THE ORIGINS OF HONKY:
IMHO, a few minutes surfing research doesn't justify the use of hate
words.
Maryanne
elephant's ear but with absolutely black leaves - instructions said it must
be planted in deep shade - spectacular looking giant black leaves - I
couldn't afford it (very expensive) & don't have any really deep shade for
such an expensive plant - sad!
Maryanne
"TOM KAN PA" <tomk...@aol.comic> wrote in message
news:20030215192941...@mb-ba.aol.com...
Cereoid+10
That's a good sign that you are an absolute stark raving mad lunatic.
Are you implying that the sane are slow witted dolts of limited vocabulary?
Bet you are a fundamentalist bible thumping fascist too!!!
ed <mash...@rock.ofages> wrote in message
news:3tu3a.2356$0q5....@fe01.atl2.webusenet.com...
paghat
<billz...@vol.com> wrote:
>
> What you say is all true. But their contributions didn't stop with
> the Emancipation Proclamation. And not all slaves came directly to the
> US. Many when they were transported here brought along ideas
> influenced by where they were enslaved previously.
This extends an actually valid & on-topic discussion of African American
Gardening both for introductions & techniques. Most of the American
"tradition" is West African in origin, but gardened species even from the
at-the-time unexplored Kalahari (unexplored by whites that is) were
already being gardened in the New World, as for example the African
watermelon. One theory is the seeds were carried to the new world by black
berbers who were with Diego Columbus & other early visitors to the New
World. These black berbers were professional hired seamen -- they never
were slaves. Of the two maroon tribes that survive to this day, one traces
their lineage to "Nanny" a woman sailor said to be so powerful she could
catch slavers' cannonballs between the moons of her ass & fire them back
at the enemy. The other key Maroon tribe trace their ancestry to runaway
slaves. By the time the English Colonies were established (with the forced
assistance of west africans) there were already gardened plants in the
southern states & the Carribs instantly recognizable by the west african
population.
-paggers
>
> I agree about the southern farm products and am grateful. Yams,
> black-eyes, and watermelons being favorites of mine.
>
> zhan
--
paghat
<billz...@vol.com> wrote:
Then you'll have approved of Lenny Bruce being hounded to an early grave,
you bad soul you.
By the way, I collect lexicons, & the attempt to harmonize the various
theories about the origins of the word honky is original to me. The web is
indeed great for instant-research, but don't go around assuming that just
because most of the people you hang with lack libraries of any
consequence, then people you don't hang with are just as deprived of
personal libraries of any worth.
But to quote the opening few words of a short story that first appeared in
an award-winning anthology, & was reprinted in a Year's Best anthology:
"Dykes, kikes, spics, micks, fags, hags, gooks, spooksŠmore of us are
outsiders than aren't..." [from "Pale Trembling Youth" by myself & W. H.
Pugmire].
Whether or not you're really a honky, I don't hate you. I mean heck, the
first time I met an honest-to-shit Redneck Jew it was such a delight to
hear that cracker accent under a yarmulkah, though his leaving the south
"to escape the shfartza" led to a heated argument (one that led to no
enmity however). So if you feel disrespected, probably it's related to
something unrelated to my fondness for Carlinisms & my failing to share
your horror of language. That you cannot figure out the difference does, I
suppose, prohibit me from fully respecting you as much as I wish I could,
& that's unfortunate in all directions; but any sense that you are hated
stems from within yourself & has no relationship whatsoever to my use of
language, which in fact is artful & well-considered, even when vulgar.
And I note that you did NOT take offense when I jestingly called MYSELF a
"honky" in my very first post in this thread & a "white devil" later on,
all in a tone of jest that escaped you. But then, you haven't cared
sufficiently about the topic to actually read carefully for comprehension;
you've done little more than kvetch & crab in pure kneejerk mode, & fancy
yourself important enough to be insulted or even hated, getting yourself
in a dither over nothing, without an ounce of depth or substance. It was
YOU and not I brought up the issue of YOUR race & I repeat -- I don't know
& I don't care & never asked & never even considering asking; it never
previously & never in the future will matter to me one way or the other;
but as it seemed important enough to YOU that YOU made an issue of my
knowing, onlyu then did I make the very sensible surmise of honky, based
on reading many of your conservative kneejerk posts in the past. The
surmise stands. If that offends you, well maybe it should, but only if
the shoe fits. And it's not NEARLY as offensive as you jumping off the
deep end without even apprising yourself sensibly on ANY of the topics you
are so often quick to malign.
-paghat the ratgirl
"The chief enemy of creativity is good taste."
-- Pablo Picasso
"shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, & tits."
-- George Carlin
Iris Cohen
Not quite. 8 to 11 would be more like it.
zhanataya
You're probably right. In my minds eye Cape Town was a _lot_ further
south. sorry.
zhan
Maryanne
drought - everything else is farther north & therefore much warmer & also
summer rainfall & winter dry
Maryanne
"zhanataya" <billz...@vol.com> wrote in message
news:vah05v4ad84roff3b...@4ax.com...
madgard
> Then you'll have approved of Lenny Bruce being hounded to an early grave,
> you bad soul you.
>
To is a preposition, COME is a
verb............to.........................................come.............
...............to .........come............to come............did you come?
did you come good?
ahhh yes, good ol' junked out, paranoid, but previously humor genius, Lenny
Bruce. The man who died of the massive overdose of scag after years of
paranoid persecution complexes..............and before you say something
about that to me, I have his albums. The one I love is his "Why I was
arrested" album............................Too bad that Dustin Hoffman
wasn't able to do the movie tribute of his life the way he really wanted to.
madgardener, who indeed had a prejudicial and bigotted adopted father, who
amazingly enough was Scotch-Irish/Cherokee/Apache (he was really dark, which
meant his Indian was stronger), and if ya really wanna delve in my family's
history, my great Uncle on my adopted mothers side once shot a black man in
the head for stealing chickens from a white man, then he and his deputies
sat around and were amazed that the brains almost "filled up a dish pan"
because they didn't think their brains were that large. Misconceptions of
ignorant Southern white men. Ignorant people are everywhere . Listen to
the readings of the documentaries of the last surviving slaves taken in the
late 30's and 40's and put into text on HBO and be humbled. geezus people,
enough of this crap.
Frogleg
Howard) wrote:
>Are there any black gardening organizations? I'm interested
>African-American viewpoints on gardening. Any sites you can direct me
>to?
"Black gardening" doesn't turn up any culturally-specific references
on Google's first page. How would "black gardening" be different from
any other sort? What did you have in mind? I note that this has become
a very long thread with no return appearance of the OP.
paghat
(Frogleg) wrote:
I ended up exchanging e-mails with the authentic Coleman, a very kind &
intelligent gent really, & he did not post this query, nor did he
personally have any need of such information, being more into motorcycles
than gardening. A small handful of trolly long-time hard-core UseNet
racists have been forging his posts for a few years, often with the intent
to "subtly" beat the bushes for closet racists to start fights with
selfrighteous liberal boobs about it is or it isn't a proper topic. Whity
twinking with whity works great, cuz unfortunately the all-out racist
trolls know only too well it doesn't take much to press peoples' buttons
by implying blackness is even in the room, & the inevitably racist context
of the prevailing (white) culture does the rest.
The pretend-negro doesn't even have to start with something inflamatory to
get whites kvetching at one another that it's a good topic, it's an evil
topic; that it's racist to even acknowledge race, that culture is merely
divisive, that black & white is identical when it comes to gardening
(there being no such thing as a black culture), that usenet is colorblind
so fuck you, & basically "we" don't need to hear it, & how do you know
"we" ain't niggers too (that one's exclusively a white argument is how
that's known). The only shame of it is that Byker (the forger of the
surprisingly innocuously worded post) barely even had to participate to
get it going downhill fast, & that makes him, on some strange level,
smarter than most of us in this one area of human behavior & racist
cultural context that afflicts everything people do, including gardening.
Hence most everyone followed Byker's script narrowly & precisely (I'm by
no means exempting myself -- the offended conservatives keep failing to
see me calling myself a boob or a white devil & IMAGINE they're attacked,
guilty response I suppose). Usually such things last until the word nazi
arises & topic terminates at that point -- our newsgroup was at least
smart enough enough to stop before that.
When the dominant culture CAN seriously manage to put aside its unadmitted
but very powerful self-interest in defeating black cultural topics, the
subject of African American gardening becomes a good one that all races
can learn from. If you look up "African American Gardening" on google (or
follow some links I posted previously), or even just read the more serious
least angry posts in the thread, you'll find tucked between all the
kvetching many areas of interest & distinction, in landscaping method, in
traditional plant choices, in style of folk-ornamentation, in historical
context, cultural experience, & in attendant plant mythology -- mostly but
not exclusively influences of west African & Kongo culture adapted to the
Americas. There are a few public African American gardens scattered across
the continent for visitable examples as unique as are Japanese Gardens,
formal English gardens, or Mexican desert gardens.
-paghat the ratgirl
Frogleg
(paghat) wrote:
>In article <3e590b0c...@news.earthlink.net>, nob...@nevermind.com
>(Frogleg) wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 14:15:38 GMT, ceho...@erols.com (Coleman E.
>> Howard) wrote:
>>
>> >Are there any black gardening organizations? I'm interested
>> >African-American viewpoints on gardening. Any sites you can direct me
>> >to?
>>
>> "Black gardening" doesn't turn up any culturally-specific references
>> on Google's first page. How would "black gardening" be different from
>> any other sort? What did you have in mind? I note that this has become
>> a very long thread with no return appearance of the OP.
>
>I ended up exchanging e-mails with the authentic Coleman, a very kind &
>intelligent gent really, & he did not post this query, nor did he
>personally have any need of such information, being more into motorcycles
>than gardening.
<large snip>
My apologies to Mr. Howard. I *did* note the thread produced a lot of
acrimonious drek, and wouldn't have posted myself if I hadn't been
curious about the possible motivation of the original msg. I get
caught in troll-traps as often as the next person. :-)
dr-...@wi.rr.xx.com
plants that are high in nutrition or trace elements to make up for poorer quality
other foods, also medicinals. The sweet potato and yam is the most obvious plant
comes to mind as they are staples in many parts of Africa. I think of my Gr'ma
collecting lambs ear for vit C and mint family for metvica a mint tea medicinal.
Ingrid
>
>"Black gardening" doesn't turn up any culturally-specific references
>on Google's first page. How would "black gardening" be different from
>any other sort? What did you have in mind? I note that this has become
>a very long thread with no return appearance of the OP.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List
http://puregold.aquaria.net/
www.drsolo.com
Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other
compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the
endorsements or recommendations I make.
Iris Cohen
gardening. Yes, it does exist & there are several African American garden
organizations.
Now, I would like to know if there are any Jewish garden organizations. I never
heard of any.
paghat
iris...@aol.com (Iris Cohen) wrote:
Heh!
Some while ago I began to wonder if there was such a thing as Biblical
gardening, looked into it, & sure enough, it is EXTREMELY COMMON. It is
easier to find stuff on Catholic gardening -- there are enough plants just
with Mary lore attached to fill ten big gardens -- but there are also many
Torah gardens. The first Jewish Garden in Europe was in Prague founded in
the 13th Century, & it was rediscovered during construction excavation,
with Jews fighting to have the site preserved without much luck as it's
too valuable a piece of land. As it was a cemetery garden, the graves were
immediately moved to the Old Town, & doesn't look like much chance the old
garden site will make it onto a the cultural heritage registry, alas.
"The Garden" is a state of bliss, a state of perfect being, & an actual
garden reflects this perfection; "The Garden" is also an epithet for The
Divine Shekhinah, & it is appropriate to observe Sabbath in the garden,
when the Shekhinah feasts with us, & davenning is appropriate in the
garden.
Abraham was a gardener & the central focus of Jewish gardens are trees,
because Abraham planted trees, & when he purchased a gravesite, it was
among trees (there are several very old Jewish Gardens remaining in Europe
associated with cemeteries, but they are not widely advertised because of
the problem of terrible people ripping the gardens to pieces whenever
there is a newspaper article about any of them, & they are sometimes
alluded to therefore as "Secret gardens" though where there are no more
synogogues there's usually a few Christian volunteers sustaining these
gardens, & their locations are known to Israeli travel angencies. These
cemetery gardens exist in the US as well, in great numbers really. There
is a much more public & well-advertised Jewish Garden at the Jewish Museum
in Budapest. There is a Jewish Garden adjoining a children's play area on
the edge of the Carey College campus sustained by the University of
British Columbia gardening staff. Many synogogues have around them Torah
gardens usually started by children, but sometimes elaborately landscaped
by professionals. Here's an interesting webpage on the philosophical &
community underpinnings indicating the need for public space Jewish
Gardens:
http://www.torathateva.org/jewishapproaches.html
Fig trees, palms, lemon trees, apricots, tamarisk, & oaks are of special
consequence. An almond tree represents the Mennorah of the Tabernackle, &
because of the miracle of Aaron's rod, which sprouted an almond tree. In
kabbalah, the nut of the almond represents Eve, & the shell represents
Lilith. Adam's first wife was Lilith, but it was his second wife who was
superior, just as the nutshell appears before the nut appears within it
(one of Lilith's names is Klifa, the nutshell, Zoharic demoness of the
nutgarden) Cedars or close approximations such as arborvitae are
appropriate to the Jewish garden -- I've a webpage on why, here:
http://www.paghat.com/libanimyths.html
Solomon's gardens were said to be fair to look upon, though it may have
been a pleasure garden with some pagan associations due to his wives, so
is only alluded to quickly in the Bible. Ahab's garden was also such a
distraction to him that Jezebel wrested rule from him, & he did not even
know it, so busy was he in his garden. The story as unfoled in first Kings
has it that when Ahab sought to extend his gardens by attempting to buy
the vineyard of Naboth, Naboth refused to sell, for Ahab planned to turn
the vineyard into an herbal garden (that might be used for pagan
practices), for which cruel judgement Ahab fell into a deep depression.
Jezebel, proving not invariably heartless, brought charges against Naboth,
promising Ahab she would get him the land to extend his gardens. She sent
attorneys of Beliel or Belus (a Tyrian name of the Babylonian god Marduk).
They argued the case that when Naboth insulted the king he insulted God.
They won their case and the rude man was stoned to death for blaspheming.
This fight over the garden led to Elijah's curse against Ahab & Jezebel.
"A solitary broom" is identified with Elijah because he rested in the
minimal shade of a broom. Where palms cannot be grown, sometimes corn can
be, & corn provides roof covering for Sukkoth. A Jewish garden includes
bitter herbs as a reminder of the servitude in Egypt.
For some while vegetable gardening was banned in ancient Jerusalem because
gardening methods required animal feces to be brought into yards
(strangely enough there are many cities & peoples' names in Torah which
would translate "Feces" or "Dunghill" because animal dung was symbolic of
fertility & agriculture). Laws of cleanliness prohibited such gardens in
the vicinity of the Temple, so all food gardening was outside the city
walls. Archeologists have shown that elaborate gardening was done outside
the walls of the city, both tree-shaded gardens, & vegetable gardens. Some
decorative gardening was done inside the city, presumedly without the
usual fertilizers, surrounded Solomon's palace, & there were private
garden rooms within the palace, according to Josephus. But the sacred
spice gardens were in Jericho (according to Strabo).
Today Jewish gardening is keyed to seasonal ritual & festival. Flowers are
essential for Purim. Michael Brown's JEWISH GARDENING COOKBOOK helps
establish a planting & harvesting calandar keyedto special feasts, with a
special section on a Torah garden for children.
Three random notes from my desktop files:
1) The Holy Zohar of Saphed tells us, "The Garden is the Shekhinah on
earth, and Eden is the supernal Mother" [Zoh I:26a]. This means that every
garden is a reflection of the divine realm, a home for Malkhuth the Lower
Shekhinah, who being deprived of Her Temple dwells with each of us who
gardens (in an extension to the Book of Daniel, Susannah is likewise
associated with this Garden). Christians similarly know Mary as "the
enclosed garden." The Jewish name of the Shekhinah as Garden is Gannah, a
feminine word that can well be translated "She is a Garden." When in the
book of Esther we are told of "the king's Garden," this names Esther as
Gannah, & it is not King Xerxes' garden, but G-d's. "The Earth brings
forth Her bud, and Gannah causes things that are planted to spring forth"
[Isa 61:11]. Gannah may originally have been a semitic pagan concept, for
in the garden there were orgies & sacrifices for Asherah [1:29; 65:3;
66:17]. She was reminiscent of orgiastic Flora of Rome, Goddess of
Springtime, and was associated with moisture, rainfall, and waterways.
"Gannah that hath no water" was a yahwist description of the Goddess
punished for refusing to subject herself to God [1:30]. God punished
Gannah whenever the people of Israel were unfaithful [Am 4:9 -- a key
verse on the Shekhinah taking on the burden even of the suffering we
deserve], but when Israel-as-Bride was faithful, then G-d and the
Shekhinah are united in the Garden (especially upon the Sabbath). The
wedding of G-d & Gannah (or Yahweh & Mother Zion, of Tifereth & Malkhuth)
was a highly sexual union, as when we read, "His branch shooteth forth in
his Garden" [Job 8:16]. The result of their fruitfulness was plentitude
for all who worshipped G-d & honored Gannah [Jr 29:5, 28; Am 9:14].
2) Some said that the Shekhinah did not originate celestially, but was a
part of the world from the beginning, & her first home was the Garden of
Eden. She was herself named Eden, the owner of that Garden, & God called
the Shekhinah "My Garden" (ganni) which is compared to "my bridal chamber"
(ginnuni) [Song of Songs Rabbah, 1:2.1, 5:1.1]. So too she is called
Tappuah the Apple Orchard, the same as Eden [Zohar I:26a]. In Gan-eden,
the Shekhinah sat on a cherubim under the Tree of Life, where she gleamed
365,000 times brighter than the sun [3 Enoch 5:1-3]. Whoever gazed upon
her light became invulnerable to death or disease [5:4], which is why the
Angel of Death was powerless against Moses after he saw the burning
thornbush, & only the Shekhinah herself was able to take the life ofmoses
[b. Baba Bathra 17a]. In the Garden of Eden the Shekhinah was the guardian
of Adam and Eve. When "they heard the Sound of the Lord walking in the
garden" [Gn 3:8], this Sound was the sound of tinkling bells that the
Shekhinah wore about her ankles [b. Sotah 9b; Isa 3:16].
3) To plant a garden no matter how humble can lead to greatness. Rachel
bat-Kalba Savua was the daughter of a wealthy sheep farmer for whom Akiba
worked in his unlearned youth. Rachel betrothed herself to the poor man in
secret, insisting only that Akiba be a scholar. The Midrash HaGadol tells
how she caused Akiba to rise to greatness. He was so poor & illiterate, he
felt too ridiculous to be the only grown man in a boy's school, & so put
off studying. Rachel planted a garden on their donkey's back, insisting
Akiba go into the market with the donkey. At first people laughed at such
a sight, but soon the donkey's garden was taken for granted & ignored.
Thereby Rachel taught Akiba that a little laughter at his expense couldn't
hurt so much, & he need not be embarrassed to seek wisdom.
dr-...@wi.rr.xx.com
iris...@aol.com (Iris Cohen) wrote:
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dr-...@wi.rr.xx.com
information and planted what the locals did. My grandfather (who was Jewish) did a
lot of traveling and brought back different plants, especially potatoes from
different areas. so the small village (Lic) had a variety of potatoes at any one
time and did not practice monoculture. when pests attacked one type, the others were
resistant. Ingrid
iris...@aol.com (Iris Cohen) wrote:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Iris Cohen
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel, which may or may not include
farming. Today, it may be collective or privatized. It has nothing whatever to
do with gardening per se.
Polar
><< look under "kibbutz" >>
>
>A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel, which may or may not include
>farming. Today, it may be collective or privatized. It has nothing whatever to
>do with gardening per se.
>
I doubt if there's anything like "Jewish Gardening" as such, though
there are numerous injunctions in Torah and Talmud about respecting
the environment, planting trees, giving the earth a rest every seven
years, and other positive attitudes toward Nature.
This Subject reminded me of a beautiful book I got as a gift several
birthdays ago. I had put it on the shelf and forgotten it till this
Subject felicitously caused me to take it down. Though secular, I
have been studying the Hebrew Bible these last few years through
disparate sources, and finding it an endless fascination. This
beautiful illustrated book, scholarly but accessible, is going to be a
joy, so thanks for guiding me back to it.
Title: "Nature & Man in the Bible: Chapters in Biblical Ecology"
by Yehuda Feliks. ISBN 0 900689 19 6.
The dust jacket lists a number of questions, for example "What plants
grow on the Western Wall" and "Why was the burning bush not consumed".
"The answers to these and to many other fascinating questions are
to be found in the pages of this book, in which Professor Feliks has
drawn on his extensive knowledge of Bible, Talmud (commentaries)
and Biology. He has been able to identify many of the plants and
animals mentioned in the Bible, where no fewer than 250 species are
recorded.
"The authors avowed purpose in this book has been to attract the
student of the Bible to the nature of the land, and the lover of
Nature to the Bible."
--
Polar