Ah, the merry month of May in our gardens. Yet, today, I must tell you that writing about the glories of the garden seems so elsewhere. The savage brutality that we have witnessed at Virginia Tech has brought me to a complete standstill. Where are we?
The November 2006 elections clearly showed that we are a nation divided, torn against each other. Yes, in the election, one side won over the other side, but the divisiveness just plays out in our conversations.
The stunning disintegration into civil war in Iraq - our veterans mistreated and abused by incompetence. The families of our troops, alone as they sort out their issues, abandoned by the media to bring their stories to the forefront - they don't count in our media chatter these days. The greed of our business captains ... the acceleration and stunning proportions in the gap between them that have and the rest of us
I am, in so many ways, worn down in this season of renewal, and then the sorrow and utter devastation for the Virginia Tech students and faculty - I just stop.
Writing about the weeds or the travails or the beauties to be found in our gardens seems hollow, until I take a break and wander out into the garden in the early evening light. Pull a weed here, prune a bit there, hear the birds vigorously calling for their mates as they settle on the geography of their nests - the reasons we have all, in one form or another, "made" a garden, becomes inspiring and self-evident again.
In the quietude of our garden spaces, there is room to contemplate our sorrows. The vigor of the new growth inspires us in spite of our heavy thinking. The neighbor's cat prowls around our legs, and we remember our annoyances with its bathroom habits in our carefully tilled vegetable plots. A renewing rhythm settles into our bones. We reconnect to positive energy, optimism, a sense of affirmative participation.
After the E. coli scare with spinach last year, there is a growing interest in creating or expanding vegetable gardens in the home landscape. Spinach plants can easily be tucked into the seasonal pots of color now found in most gardens.
But it is more than just spinach that is driving many homeowners to find ways to expand their food production capabilities. Growing your own fruits and vegetables is the only reliable way to know if they are truly organic. Large businesses have co-opted the term 'organic' so that products labeled 'organic' may not use the same standards that are in place here in the United States.
And then there is the additional issue of the amount of fossil fuel that is used to haul these products around the globe and onto our tables. We are told constantly that small acts of conservation can lead to large-scale improvements for our fragile planet. And planting and harvesting reawaken the sense of change, seasonal change.
Many different terms are bandied about to describe this recent intense interest in home food production gardening. Probably the most useful term to use for gathering more information is 'urban farming'. And along the way, I suspect you find references to Fritz Haeg's Edible Estates project.[[In-content Ad]]
