Will Terrill In The Garden
Since I can remember my father has kept a 10x15’ vegetable garden on the side of the house. Every spring we would talk with certainty of the importance of growing our own food without “all the chemicals and preservatives,” and of the extraordinary flavor of tomatoes fresh from the garden, but somehow every fall the blisters on my fingers and the ache in my knees told me that was all bogus. Discomfort aside, I grew content with the idea that I would always keep a garden of some form, even if it was more of a symbol then a satisfying or productive hobby, because that’s just what you did if you were a Terrill.
Since I can remember my father has kept a 10x15’ vegetable garden on the side of the house. Every spring we would talk with certainty of the importance of growing our own food without “all the chemicals and preservatives,” and of the extraordinary flavor of tomatoes fresh from the garden, but somehow every fall the blisters on my fingers and the ache in my knees told me that was all bogus. Discomfort aside, I grew content with the idea that I would always keep a garden of some form, even if it was more of a symbol then a satisfying or productive hobby, because that’s just what you did if you were a Terrill.
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Thus, when a classmate at Monmouth College approached me in the spring of 2011 about living in a theme house where all the inhabitants would eat out of the new campus garden, I quickly agreed. I thought living in such a house might give me an opportunity to align myself with the social and environmental politics I had begun to care about. Plus, I already knew how to garden, or so I told myself. Over the course of three years the Garden House Project became a student-run campus homestead that supplied us with a year round food supply, supplemented by a measly store budget of $40 per month per occupant for bulk goods we couldn’t grow. During that foundational time, I was fortunate enough to meet Allison Razo, my loving partner, fellow gardener, and best friend.
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I’ve come to realize that the 10x15’ garden I helped my father keep was only a glimmer of what a garden could be, and that vegetables and fruit are only a small fraction of the garden’s potential yield. In the garden I find healthy, physical, and purposeful work, all to the tempering rhythm of the seasons. I reinvigorate the efficiencies of home-economy by producing more than I consume, and I search for an environmentally and socially ethical livelihood. In the garden I foster the richness of a localized community with roots in the land. And in the garden, I sustain myself. |
While the Garden House helped me glimpse a healthy and gentle livelihood close to the land, John Curtis and Barefoot Gardens taught me the steps needed to secure that livelihood. After volunteering with John off and on during 2012, sending him eager emails about books, bugs, seeds, and spinach, I came to work for him in the summer of 2013. I doubt I will find a more beautiful or satisfying place to work than Barefoot Gardens, nor will I meet someone like John who can at once be a thoughtful mentor and loving friend. Thanks in large part to the friendship and support of John and his wife Karen, Allison and I have decided to settle in the area. In July of 2015, we bought a house with 17 acres only a bike-ride away from Barefoot Gardens.
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