It all started with a trip to India and Tibet in the late 90’s.
Peggy Carswell had a friend who was a monk returning to Tibet and invited her to visit. What she didn’t know she would find was a community of organic tea farmers who didn’t know what “organic” meant and just did things on their own, without the use of pesticides or chemicals and without government intervention.
“I found these small villages where the owners did not want to buy pesticides or the chemical fertilizers to increase yields that the government was pushing. The government wanted to push pesticides to control pests,” said Carswell.
She discovered farmland tucked into the mountains and near rivers. Large plantations of tea producers used burning herbs and a paste made from sugar cane to naturally deter what locals referred to as “tea mosquitoes” that like the shade at the bottom of the plants. This natural process kept the tea plants healthy and thriving.
“They would bring in healthy soil from the forest, crush different plants to add to it as they had certain chemical compounds that worked as natural pesticides.”
What struck Carswell the most was how connected she felt when she was with the tea farmers. There was a common goal of natural tea production and she felt a sense of community — something she wanted to bring back to the Comox Valley.
“There were connections around India that I soon fell into, being the tea lady from Canada. I was a part of the larger tea community.”
Many trips were made back and forth, from the Valley to India, sharing tips and techniques on how to organically grow tea. Carswell often moved from one community to another sharing information she had gathered from texts that had been translated from Sanskrit to English. She would pack herself, a projector and a generator up and ride on the back of a motorcycle all in the name of sharing with other tea growers.
“I’d get phone calls asking me to come to their village and show them some of the practices that had yielded organic tea in other areas.”
The connection that Carswell felt to those tea producers has lasted many years and though she hasn’t been able to go to India since the pandemic, the lines of communication remain wide open. And so does the importing of organic teas to the Valley by way of India.
“We would fill backpacks and suitcases with tea and bring it back as shipping in small amounts of tea to Canada gets very expensive.”
Throughout the years, to create a larger sense of community in the Comox Valley, Carswell has taken in working travellers: people who want to work on her 2.5-acre land in return for room and board for around five days.
The workers layered compost as if it were a lasagna; they canned tomatoes. They put branches through a chipper to prepare mulch.
“I’ve been having travellers visit my property for about two and a half years. They want to travel and explore culture and are able to offer work for about five or six hours a day. I have a big property and having these enthusiastic people of all ages who are interested in learning new skills is so helpful. ”
Carswell wants to welcome newcomers to the Valley and help them find their way to a sense of belonging here. She meets with international students who go to North Island College. She befriends monks who have found their way to a new life. She continues to have one goal in mind - community.
“I’m really interested in building up connections in our community, especially new [people] in the community. There are a lot of new students at the college who I welcome in; people in the community that are looking for something that feeds their heart a little bit and makes them feel like there’s a connection.”
She brings all these people together one chai at a time.
“I’ve made chai for over 150 people for the Fiesta craft fair before and it is intense work, much easier to do it for the Fertile Ground annual general meeting.”
Carswell’s community includes Fertile Ground: East/West Sustainability Network, something she founded in 2003.
The Fertile Ground program supports Assamese farmers, tea growers and families in their efforts to care for the soil, produce healthy crops, and protect local seeds and cultural practices in India. Carswell also helps with getting the tea directly from India to the Valley.
