At the entrance to Whiteaker Gardens two Fridays ago, a man named James gestured to a plot far in the corner and said a man there practically lived on the plot where he tended his crops.
Before James rode off on his bike, away from the 28-year-old community garden where people can rent 20-by-30-foot plots from the city, he praised the garden’s virtues.
“It’s free,” he said, pausing after crushing open a walnut between two rocks. “But then, money doesn’t exist. Neither does time.”
Down a row of roped-off plots, past gourds and bushes of white figs, Gary Wallace sat at a stone-topped bench made from a tree-trunk, spooning ground vegetables into a jar.
He looked up and rose, smiling, and began to speak about his crops. He walked around the bench, past tall grasses and strawberry vines, to a Goji bush and said the seeds had come from Tibet. He stood straight and spoke deliberately about his work. The berries, he said, had been used for centuries to promote health and healing.
He pointed out strong-smelling mustard greens, Amaranth stalks that released edible seeds when shaken and pumpkin vines that produced white gourds. Pointing to a bush snaking with leafy vines, he said Peruvian tubers grow in its roots that taste like water chestnuts.
Sunday, Wallace said he goes to the garden as often as possible.
“It’s a good way to recharge,” he said. “It’s surprising how satisfying it is to grow something then harvest and eat it.”
Wallace attended the University in the late 1960s and learned of Sikhism while taking a yoga class in the gym. Since that class, he has lived around Eugene and Veneta, Ore., developing his faith.
“Gardening is sort of an outgrowth of that,” he said.