The Spirit of Compost Girl

Maria Sgambati wasn’t your typical 10-year-old. She really, really wanted a garden, so her parents assigned her a small patch on their property. At 12, she had to have a compost pile, so she started one. Her first scientific experiment was "borrowing" her parents’ thermometer, sticking it in the center of the pile, and finding out that it really was super-hot. Maybe it was this exciting discovery that led her to med school and her career in research. In between those two things she chose a college for its garden, something that doesn’t get much press in the books on choosing a college. Her small school had a huge organic one where she worked to pay her way through school and learned about growing edibles on a large scale.

Maria now lives in D.C. and has gardened for the last five years at the gorgeous community garden near Washington Cathedral. Its 200 plots are filled with equal parts edibles, ornamentals, seating and even shade structures, all with a view of the spires of the Cathedral. She remembers going there on September 11, 2001 and finding it a real sanctuary from the mayhem and fighter jets that everyone in this area experienced that day. Someone was playing the flute there that afternoon.

Maria recalled all this in her recent talk at the Washington Ethical Society, where she’s one of the volunteer keepers of its lovely garden. Among other thoughts about gardening that she shared:
- Gardening transformed her life; connected her to life.
- Gardening elicits the best in her and awakens her senses.
- Eating food from the ground is a holy experience.
- In her garden she "knows fully what I am."
- She "can’t bear to leave" her garden.  She’d miss seeing her beans grow.
- Gardening teaches us we’re mortal.  It makes us feel part of the cycle of life, a part of the living universe.

Thanks, Maria, for a wonderful talk.