‘The friendship of the good': how a community garden gave me a sense of something bigger than myself

The Guardian

a day ago

If you came across our school garden, you might walk past without giving it much thought. On the surface, we don't have anything that would warrant a visit from Gardening Australia: no kitchen garden or water feature or 'reflection space'. But we do have something else you might not see at first glance – something I wasn't expecting to find when I first came to this suburb.
I moved to Fawkner, Melbourne with my partner and kids about five years ago, in search of affordable housing. The suburb was nice enough but I felt unmoored. I didn't know anyone here and much of community life seemed to revolve around structures such as the extended family, the church and the mosque. I could see how vital these were for people in our suburb; for my part, however, I'm not religious and my extended family live far away. I tried to find other ways to make connections: my kids and I went to Lego time at the library; we hung out at the local playground and chatted to people at the skate park. But none of it added up to a sense of belonging.
Then I signed up to help with our school garden. At the very least, I figured, it was a day out in the sun.
On volunteer day, my partner pushed our kids to school in a wheelbarrow, and I was armed with a shovel and pitchfork. Around 50 people turned up to the school on a Sunday to help with the garden, and while the kids played, the adults chose jobs according to our levels of ability and enthusiasm. My partner opted to repair the garden beds and I went for the lower-stakes job of weeding. It was slow and careful work, pulling out dandelions and chickweed – along with a few chip packets.
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Between gardening and tending to the kids, there were moments of socialising: a nod of thanks from a teacher, a chat with another parent about the out-of-control compost heap that lives behind the mud kitchen. These conversations were tentative, at least on my part; the pandemic and early motherhood had left me out of practice when it came to socialising. However, the school garden was the perfect place to learn how to be with other people again and I could see that I was surrounded by the sorts of people who I wanted to befriend.
At midday we stopped for lunch (all halal, some vegan) and in the late afternoon the kids busied themselves by turning rubber gloves into makeshift water bombs. Eventually we wheelbarrowed our kids home, happy and hyper and wet.
When I returned to school on Monday, it looked different – and not just because the garden was in better shape. It looked different because my relationship to the place, and the people, had subtly changed: I felt invested in them.
After a few more gardening sessions, I had people to talk to and text. At first, these conversations revolved around the garden; however, one WhatsApp chat group led to another (as they tend to do) and soon enough I had people to hang out with. People I could call on for support if I needed it.
Working together in this way brings us close to what Aristotle called 'the friendship of the good'. This, according to Aristotle, is the best kind of friendship: it happens when you see the good in another person, and they in you. It is very different to what he calls a 'utilitarian friendship', where we spend time with another person because of what they can do for us. A friendship of the good, conversely – like the school garden itself – is about creating something bigger than ourselves.
Our school garden has given me a way to see the good in my neighbourhood. We have a diverse community: nearly half the adults here, including myself, were born overseas.
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If we are to believe the worst corners of the internet, then life is something to be feared. People are to be feared, because people – as the despots and tech bros would have us believe – are motivated purely by self-interest; therefore, we must dominate others, or risk being dominated ourselves. And maybe that is true for a small portion of society. But in every neighbourhood there is also this: people coming together to work on shared projects, motivated by simple altruism. Projects that help strangers build connections to place and each other.
This doesn't mean the school garden is utopia. Sometimes the seedlings die. Sometimes a child gets upset and stomps on a tube stock. But even these moments become lessons about care, consequences and how to repair damage.
In tending to the garden together, we create a common purpose rooted in the things we all need: nourishment, agency and belonging.
And maybe that's the most radical thing we can grow.
All We Need by Magdalena McGuire is out now (A$34.99 Ultimo Press)