Garden Earth Exchange

Our Earth Exchange this morning was at the garden I have been attending. It is a lovely garden enjoyed by many in the city park, although its beauty is now “western” artifice. This dry place with few trees was once forest and marsh, a hunting and gathering place for the Patwin people whose village was about half a mile away on Putah Creek. The Patwin are still known for their beautiful baskets, often tightly woven enough to hold water. I asked my daughter, who is a plant scientist, to help me identify some of the plants currently in the garden that might have been present here at the time the Patwin were tending the area. She found quite a few: wild rye, yarrow, elk blue common rush, deergrass, red buckwheat, manzanita, California rose and valley oak. There is an area in the garden for vegetables, which are taken to a local food bank, so the land is still feeding people. My granddaughter was curious about what the lives of the Patwin might have been like. She is an artist and created the stunning bird for our Act of Beauty.