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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (April 3, 2015)
Street Roots • April 3-9, 2015 my parents wanted to do. We had a couple acres of land, relatives coming over to pick tomatoes on weekends. We grew more than we could consume.” His father worked at the University of Notre Dame power plant, and his creative, inventive mother ran the garden and the family. Neither had graduated from high school. “But,” he says, “they instilled in us the value of education.” When they were ready for college, he and his older brother, Jim - Tom was the second - decided they wanted to go into fisheries, and they chose Oregon State University as the best destination. OSU had a great fisheries program, and out-of-state students could work in Oregon for the summer and then qualify as residents. When Tom graduated in 1968, Jim had already served with th e Marines in Vietnam, and he suggested, as Tom mildly put it, “You know, you might be better o ff... doing something else with your time.” That’s when Tom Lichatowich joined the Peace Corps and ended up in Fiji with 11 other volunteers. After a dozen years in Fiji, first with the Peace Corps and then with the Fijian government, Lichatowich worked for six years for the United Nations in fisheries programs in the Middle East and Africa. Most of his projects were demonstrations: showing how to make fisheries more sustainable, getting others to develop their own fish farms In Fiji, he found a culture that depended on mutual community support “In poor countries, for survival they have to pull together.” Fijian society worked on a system called keri “You are obligated to help someone if they are in need or if they ask. When someone else’s house blows down, you have an obligation. When you have trouble, they’ll help you.” Though complicated, it was a system in place for centuries, and it knitted the society together. Fijians couldn’t really own a successful business then, because if someone came to them and needed what they were selling, they had to help. One can see how such a custom would make capitalism impossible. Today, of course, the tradition is being lost. But Lichatowich took important lessons from that culture of mutual support — lessons he still lives by today. ven in the middle of winter, Lichatowich’s garden is a world apart from the rest of his Northeast Portland neighborhood. The street is lined with one- story bungalows and neat square green lawns. When I asked for directions, he told me, “It’s pretty easy to spot when you come down the street. It’s a striking yellow house, and it’s the only one with no lawn out front.” Photos of the sum mer garden show vivid masses of every shade of green; brilliant reds and oranges and purples — tomatoes, radishes, carrots, eggplants; splashes of flame-red dahlias, tall golden sunflowers; the giant dark leaves of rhubarb, shiny-deep-green basil, delicate sprays of dill and fennel, tassels of corn. Deep in the garden among all this jungle, a stone Buddha sits quiet and reflective, rather like Lichatowich himself. On the damp gray winter, day I visited, E News the garden was a series of messy-looking weight down the cover, and a small warming dirt mounds laced with sticks and eggshells bulb in the comer wired to a switch in the and bits of leaves and even old chicken house. Everything is from found, scrounged, bones, with wandering paths of fine orange or recycled materials. sawdust, and a few leafless fruit trees Lichatowich figures that about 60 percent standing brave in the winter cold. He hasn’t to 70 percent of what he and his wife, built wood frames for his raised beds — Penelope, consume is grown in the garden. they’re just heaped-up leaf mold and rabbit He also provides produce to his daughters manure, piled on wood chips, piled on layers and their families who live in town, and he of cardboard. But I’m a gardener too, and I shares with neighbors. Penelope dries and could see the richness of those piles of dirt, preserves fruits and nuts, makes and freezes the potential of the tomato and basil new season hidden purees, dills their in the humble, cucumbers for scrappy earth. pickles, makes Ignoring the coleslaw, does light Oregon some fermenting. drizzle, They store onions Lichatowich took and squash in a me for a garden dry, well- tour. He was quick ventilated garage to point out the and dig potatoes very simplicity of from the ground his garden, despite all the way its wealth of through produce in the December. high season. He Having retired "P e o p le g o h y a n d say? y o n ?re uses, as he said, some years ago, a lw a y s a n t to re » d o in g s o m e th in g very minimal Lichatowich sees In th e g a rie » « T o « worfe sa h a r d / inputs. He gets the the garden as a B u t 1 r e a lly d o n o t n o tic e th e tim e o r way he can save sawdust from a man nearby with a e ife rt« H aw ing th e tim e to werfe w ith money for the small lumber mill, nature? p ro d u c e s o m e th in g ©1 w in e ? family and who takes downed a e s th e tic a lly as w e ll as n n trltle n a lly ? contribute to the trees from tree neighborhood, Is a g ift« 1 gness 1 a m g ra te fn l lo r He claims not service companies to be a and mills them into th is g i l t / " TOM LÌCHATOWICH, neighborhood usable pieces for ! 'NORTHEAST PORTLAND organizer or to woodworkers. RESIDENT AND GARDENER have an organized “Most places communal charge for system, but he sawdust,” . Lichatowich explains, “but he gives it away if gives away plant starts to local gardeners and sometimes posts them on Craigslist. you’re willing to shovel and haul.” Of course Neighbors bring over heaps of leaves, grass Lichatowich is. Another neighbor raises rabbits, and he drops off loads of manure - B clippings, any yard debris they have left over. His street is a through bike lane, and one of the secrets of the garden’s success. Lichatowich puts plants and produce out at I was curious to know whether he the corner for free pickup. planned out the garden ahead of time, “Always disappears quickly,” he says. “I maipped what he’d put where. suspect we have easily given away about a “Oh, I always start out with a plan,” he third of what we produce.” , said. “But certain things happen, it morphs He and Penelope moved into the and morphs, and it turns out it’s a dynamic neighborhood just a few years ago. About thing.” The plants take over the garden. that time, the Tohoku earthquake and They have their own plan. tsunami struck Japan, and there was talk of He’s working on extending the planting the likelihood of a big quake here in the season in the Northwest He showed me a Pacific Northwest Penelope tried to drum wooden planter about the size of three end- up neighborhood interest in a meeting to to-end shoeboxes, where he is raising talk about preparing for an earthquake or lettuce sprouts from seeds he hand- other emergencies. Walking the harvested in his garden at the end of the neighborhood, she found many doorbells season. The sprouts were maybe an inch broken, signs saying “Do Not Disturb.” tall, tiny green leaves that looked vulnerable On the day of the meeting, only three in the cold. He’d protected them with a people came. But later, a neighbor told her, series of hoops made from bent recycled “I won’t come to a meeting, but if it’s a wire and roofed over with clear plastic. “The parly, I’ll be there.” So Penelope announced roof is just old plastic grocery bags. I cut a party. them open to spread them out and poked a “Everybody came. Kids rode their bikes, few holes so the sprouts get some played games in the street. And people got rainwater.” to know each other,” Lichatowich says. Now, His compost pile, an impressive shoulder- they have block parties, with beer provided high three-bin fortress in the back comer of by a neighbor who works in one of the local the lot, is built from used pallets. He has breweries. rigged a cleverly-designed mini-greenhouse Neighbors know each other; if someone’s shelf onto the side of the house with sick, people will take over food. “If an another clear plastic covering, a row of elderly lady has a branch down, neighbors chopped-up garden hose along the edge to Page 9 help o u t” In the fall he grows pumpkins, decorative gourds, cornstalks for decorations, and “kids come over and do the pumpkin patch routine.” They love digging into the earth for the treasure of buried potatoes. He sees his garden as a piece of something larger, a small part of a solution that’s within reach for others, too, if they’ll work together. “You know, we’re only as strong as the weakest link,” he says. “I think the financial crisis a few years ago showed it. One entity — big banks and mortgage companies — took advantage of a part of the population and created havoc for us all. You can’t do that without suffering some consequences.” People — especially Americans — don’t want to be dependent, he says. But we are. ut front, we spot raccoon tracks in the fresh sawdust. He grows enough to share with urban wildlife, too: raccoons, birds, opossums, even the squirrels. It seems natural to him to share what he produces. But he wonders, is our society ready to share what we have? “We can share tools, but if you loan out your shovel, it might come back dirty, or broken.” He examines the bare branches of a Brooks plum tree. “It seems that working toward the common good is countercultural,” he says. “But I think things are changing.” He cites a study he read that said the fastest-growing agricultural sector in Oregon is backyard gardens. “That was at the time the recession hit, and maybe more people started thinking about gardening. I saw it myself in the garden stores: drip irrigation equipment, cedar raised beds, organic fertilizers.” He tells of urban gardens being established in poor neighborhoods, where on 2 acres they can feed dozens of families. “It doesn’t have to cost a lo t And it’s all organic, so ...” O ichatowich offers a little light of hope in a time when so many go hungry, especially in Oregon. He lives his example of backyard gardening as a simple, manageable, inexpensive way to provide what people need — not only in nutrition, but in mutual support, a sense of community and a sense of purpose, “People go by and say, ‘Gee, you’re always out here, doing something in the garden. You work so hard.’ But I really do not notice the time or effort. Having the time to work with nature, produce something of value, aesthetically as well as nutritionally, is a gift. I guess I am grateful for this gift “Plant a garden, you have a job for life.” He pauses, hands in pockets, gazing over his garden. “So you’d better love i t ” H
