The Generosity of Gardeners

I love honor system farm stands.

An honor stand is an unmanned fruit and vegetable stand laden with fresh local produce, often from a nearby farm. There is a scale, a pen, and an empty notebook in which you write down what you take and the total you owe. And there is a lockbox (often bolted to the stand) into which you put your cash.

An honor stand can be located in a commercial district within a small park, like Table Top Farm’s stand in Point Reyes. Or it can reside by the side of a highway like Little Wing Farm’s stand as you see here. It looks like a beautiful diorama.

They are a temple to those who love produce and fresh ingredients 24 hours, 7 days a week–and it is also a temple to the generosity and integrity of those who love produce and farm ingredients. I’m not sure this could be done with other products. Copper piping? I am guessing stolen and sold. Nails? I am guessing stolen and possibly thrown on the road. Cars? no way. Televisions? Double no way. But there is something about plants.

This past weekend, we happened to be in West Marin to visit a new friend and his wife. On the way home, we pulled off the road to visit the Honor Stand. We sent up a huge dust cloud, and as we stayed inside the car waiting for it to settle down, our anticipation grew as we eyed the dollhouse of a farm stand from the car windows.

We bounded toward the stand. My daughter picked out a dahlia bouquet garnished with perilla leaves, as well as squash and basil. We wrote down our totals. And I put the appropriate amount of cash into the cash box. It was–delightful.

We whispered while choosing our goods as if in a library, another exercise in honor.

The minty-basil smell of the perilla accompanied us all the way home from our drive to West Marin.

It was a day of generosity–punctuated by that honor stand.

We had gone to visit a new friend in Inverness. Our new friends have a marvelous garden. P and I were enthralled. We got to meet their tiny ducks (did you know there is such a thing as tiny ducks)? We also met their miniature parrot (I just realized there is a theme here of undersized birds) who does amazing tricks. Charlie the Parrotlet is even on instagram if you want to see what we saw.

Our friends opened us with open arms and warmth. They’d left berries on the raspberries for days so P could thrill in picking them and eating them off the branches. P also picked pea pods, shelled them, and fed them to one of the ducks–a duck who is particularly fond of peas. We visited a 400+ year old buckeye tree.

We brought fresh eggs from our chickens as a hostess gift. But–oh my goodness, we went home with our arms full of various garden products. We didn’t expect that. And of course, we were unable to refuse.

It’s a general pattern that when we visit our friends’ gardens, we bring something home, whether it is cuttings to grow or seeds or fruit or a quart of goat milk or a pint of honey. We never expect to bring things home–it just happens. And we try to bring something to them, as well–we have eggs and honey and cuttings and fruit to share as well. It is an amazing exchange of generosity and foresight.

Recently, as we struggled under the weight of succulent cuttings from a gardening neighbor, her husband noted, “I haven’t observed such generosity in other hobbies. I’m an art collector, and we share nothing.”

Plants cannot survive solo. They have to pollinate and reproduce. And there’s no loss (only gain) in ensuring others have plants you love. It’s true–there is generosity among gardeners.

This post incidentally, is also about making friends. About the generosity of extending friendship. I haven’t made very many new friends as of late. I have been consistently disappointed and hurt by the world and it makes me cozy up in my house. This past week has given me hope. I met these new friends at their home, their garden, and they were so sweet and big hearted and humorous and kind to us. If I were a different kind of person, I would have wept.

In the same week–I met another person, someone I’d met via the internet. He was friendly and gregarious and (again this word) generous–so much so that it made my cynical heart suspicious and whisper, “Are you for real?” But you know–there is no reward without risk. And I met him in real life. (My hobbit soul felt very adventurous this past week) .  Over the course of dinner with him and his friends, it became clear that he is truly that nice person.

And I felt ashamed for feeling so wary–I thought about how I have closed ranks in recent years. And I wondered if that was truly the best thing to do.

But mostly, I was happy to find good people. That there are more out there.

(Edison Collier fountain pen with a stub nib. Ink is Pilot Iroshizuku’s ku-jaku).