Dirty Thoughts

Spring­time has me crav­ing some real dirt time, and I’ve been spend­ing a lot of online time look­ing at plants and agri­cul­ture and gar­den­ing news. I’m a city dweller, liv­ing in apart­ments.  Hap­pily, I live right across from the city’s Botan­i­cal Gar­dens, so I have more green in my life than many city­folk. The Gar­dens are free, with a dona­tion box out front if you want to con­tribute.  In the Japan­ese Gar­den, the cherry trees are in full lacy, frilly bloom beside the tran­quil rock gar­den and koi pond.  This is my favorite place to do morn­ing yoga or quiet contemplation.

Our leg­is­la­tors have gar­den­ing on their agenda, too.  HR 875, the Food Safety Mod­ern­iza­tion Act of 2009, was brought to my atten­tion via TennZen’s  infor­ma­tive arti­cle about the leg­is­la­tion.  (She also recently wrote a cool post stat­ing east­ern red­bud pods are edi­ble.  They appar­ently are very sim­i­lar to snow peas!)   If this bill passes, fed­eral gov­ern­ment would estab­lish a food safety admin­is­tra­tion that would supercede state author­ity.  Min­i­mum stan­dards would be enforced for “food estab­lish­ments,” and vio­la­tions would cost $1 mil­lion per vio­la­tion, per day.  Washingtonwatch.com has a dis­cus­sion going, with peo­ple point­ing out Monsanto’s influ­ence and the impli­ca­tions for organic farm­ers.   “Food estab­lish­ment” is actu­ally such vague word­ing that it could extend all the way to fam­ily gar­dens.   Attack­ing the back­yard gar­den is hit­ting below the belt any day, but espe­cially in times of eco­nomic hard­ship.  Here’s hop­ing this leg­is­la­tion lan­guishes in committee.

I’m aware that pes­ti­cides make it pos­si­ble for farm­ers to sup­ply the world with nutri­tious food more effi­ciently. With­out mod­ern crop man­age­ment, many more peo­ple would be starv­ing world­wide.  Still, there are health issues with con­sum­ing pes­ti­cides, and some pro­duce is more sus­cep­ti­ble to con­t­a­m­i­nated by pes­ti­cides than oth­ers.  For a gen­eral rule of thumb, thick pro­tec­tive skins keep pes­ti­cides from absorb­ing into the veg­etable.  For those items that do carry more pes­ti­cide expo­sure risk, I buy organic when I can afford it.

Although some will tell you there is lit­tle dif­fer­ence, organic food usu­ally tastes bet­ter to my fam­ily. Organic pro­duce is often more local, and closer sup­pli­ers means that food is not har­vested too early and allowed to mature on the shelves. A straw­berry picked out of the gar­den tastes so much more vibrant than a Cal­i­for­nia grown straw­berry that has been sit­ting on a truck for a week. Recently, I’ve been look­ing at Grow Alabama to sup­ply my family’s veg­gies, though I haven’t taken the plunge.   Does any­one have any expe­ri­ence with them?  They seem rea­son­ably priced, but it really depends on how much food each plan truly pro­vides.  Fore­go­ing the oppor­tu­nity to hand select my pro­duce is another draw­back.   I’ve been intend­ing to visit the Alabama Farmer’s Mar­ket for a while, so that option is open to me as well.

When I do have the oppor­tu­nity to gar­den, I try to go organic. I’ve learned all sorts of tricks, like how to avoid horn­worms in toma­toes sim­ply by plant­ing marigolds and sage in with them. These tricks also add some vari­ety to the garden’s appeal.  Right now,  I’m lim­ited to the the tiny plot in my front yard, or in pots on the walk­ways lead­ing into the apart­ments.  I usu­ally like to plant herbs, but my mint dis­ap­peared recently.  I’ve had trou­ble with my basil dis­ap­pear­ing in the past, too, so I’ve got to fig­ure out the safest place for that barest min­i­mum of green­ery.  My mint will need to grow strong and healthy now, to last through the sum­mer months.  Mint tea is a require­ment for an Alabama summer.