|
The Telegraph
April 14, 2001
|
|
|
Russ Smith
The Rev. Maurice Lange waters garlic plants planted last November. The plants 'wintered' and have just started to pop up in the
last month.
|
|
Reverend hopes the fruits of his community
Garden
will allow ecological awareness in the area to
grow
By VICKI BENNINGTON
For The Telegraph
With the typical food we eat traveling 1,300 miles before reaching our plate, the Rev. Maurice Lange said a community organic garden is a good way to provide fresher,
healthier foods to families in the area.
"It's a win-win-win situation," Lange said. "The land is protected, people are eating
healthier food, and it will keep a full-time gardener employed."
Lange is on a one-year assignment at the Oblate Novitiate on Levis Lane.
His mission is an ecological initiative to help raise awareness about the benefits of an organic, community-supported garden. His dream is to
institute an ecological learning center to help the entire community become more aware of ecological factors and how everyone and everything affects each other.
"I hope to have workshops and retreats that would support ecological awareness and inform people how it can be supported in a sustainable
lifestyle," he said. "Native Americans tend to think about how what we do today will effect seven generations from now. I think this is very important to
try to pass on a healthy life and Earth for future generations."
Lange is working on what he calls a "small" hobby garden to portray what a community garden is like.
Peppers, winter and summer squash, garlic, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins and sunflowers are just some of the things that Lange is planting.
"The soil is the key factor in an organic garden," Lange said. "There are billions of microorganisms in the soil that help rejuvenate it and transmit
nutrients to the root hairs of the plants. Through proper care, a natural resistance against pests is built up, and there is no need for chemicals."
Lange said other procedures, such as crop rotation, cover cropping, composting and mulching, further encourage healthy plants.
He said he hopes the community-supported garden, which will be much
larger, will start in the spring of 2002, if approved by his Oblate superiors in Washington, D.C. He said programs such as these have shareholders from
throughout the community who generally contribute $400 to $600 per year, and are then entitled to their share of the garden's proceeds.
"The shareholders are not required to work, although they can certainly volunteer if they want to," Lange said. "When everything is approved, we
will begin a search for a full-time head gardener, and hope to start with 40 families (or shareholders) and be up to 160 families by 2005. The contribution supports the gardener, the land and supplies needed."
The shareholders will be able to come by each week from May through November and pick up their share of the current crop being harvested. He
said everything will be ready for them to just stop by and pick up. A portion of the proceeds will be distributed to local food pantries.
"The benefit is that the families will know where the food came from, how it is grown and who grew it," Lange said. "I have a pretty good list of
interested residents already. I'm very grateful for the support I've gotten so far."
Local residents Terri Cranmer, Jake Grant and Rachel Valdez are some of
the volunteers who have helped Lange with his hobby garden. Magpie, the resident garden guard, dog, helps out by keeping local wildlife away from the budding plants.
"People seem to find it very therapeutic, but it is hard work and a challenge," Lange said. "We all need challenges in our lives. It's very important also to be creative and really think."
He plans to be able to hold seasonal celebrations for such events as the spring equinox and summer solstice. Recently, a celebration for the spring
equinox was held on the property, when a group of volunteers came to help plant potatoes; Lange led them on a nature walk through the woods, looking for the first signs of spring.
He will visit various other ministries around the country to speak about the concept of organic, community-supported gardens in other areas and ecological awareness in general.
Lange said the concept of organic gardening began with a group of women in Japan in the 1960s. The idea didn't come to the United States until the mid
-1980s, and Genesis Gardens, a farm in New Jersey run by an order of Dominican Sisters, was the sixth in the country to start a community- supported garden. The 220-acre farm also supports an ecological learning
center. There are now about 1,000 community-supported gardens in the country, with a portion of them on Catholic grounds and the remainder run by the public sector or other organizations.
Lange spent a two-year internship at Genesis Farms and said it was one of his most formative experiences.
"It gave me the idea that organic gardening and ecological awareness were
things I definitely wanted to be involved in," Lange said. "It became a dream of mine."
Lange has missionary experience in Mexico and Zambia, Africa. He grew up
in San Antonio, Texas, and spent a year at the Oblate Novitiate in Godfrey from 1984 to 1985. He said he fell in love with the bluffs along the
Mississippi river and the area, and came back in January 2000. He served a one-year assignment at Saints Peter and Paul Church on State Street and moved to the Oblate Novitiate in January 2001.
He majored in environmental studies with a minor in philosophy, studied theology for five years and was ordained in 1990.
Bishop Eugene DeMazenod began the Missionary Oblates of Mary
Immaculate in France in 1826, with the main mission of reaching the poor. There are about 500 Oblates of Mary Immaculate in the United States and 5,000 worldwide.
Informational meetings concerning the garden will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday and at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, April 21, at the Oblate Novitiate on Levis Lane.
A retreat also will be held from 5 p.m. April 21 through 5 p.m. April 22 at the Oblate Novitiate.
"It is an Easter time retreat linking the new life of Jesus with our renewed
sense of new life around us in springtime and within us," Lange said.
Reservations must be made for the retreat. For more information or if
interested in volunteering, call the Rev. Maurice Lange at 466-5004.
|
