The Jolly Green Gardener

Gardens are so basic to civilization that they seem entirely inseperable from human life on earth. Until very recently, anyone who ate would have been able to tell a beet from a beanstalk, a pumpkin vine from a hill of potatoes. But once we got to farming, gardening became the lesser sister to farm fields, and by the time of the tractor, most Americans had forgotten that food grows in dirt.

Gardening is back these days - from zinnias to amaranth, people are growing gardens for food, bloom, and habitat. Occasionally it's hard to tell where a garden ends and a farm begins - as is often the case with organic farms and the community supported agriculture movement.

One such project, the Quail Hill Farm on Long Island, New York, grew out of one woman's concern that an orchard she loved would disappear under luxury homes. Today, Quail Hill is part of the Peconic Land Trust, in which hundreds of acres of former agricultural land in the Hamptons is set preserved from development.

How to learn to farm and garden sustainably? There are many ways - one way is to find an experienced grower. And there are more formal programs, apprenticeships, available for people with the ability to leave their daily lives and learn to feed and console the rest of us. Quail Hill participates in such an apprenticeship program. Information about it is available at www.peconiclandtrust.org/.../apprentice

And here, in my midwestern homeplace, I am buying from local organic farmers whenever I can.  Though my home gardening is now pretty much limited to ornamentals, I grow them without pesticides or chemical fertilizers and use graywater whenever possible to water them - especially important this past summer, which started out hot and dry. I grow a lot of native flowers, and try to control invasives. We recently spent three days removing a fairly large buckthorn in the backyard, recycling the wood - we were so green, we used a handsaw!

And most of us expect to "end" in a "garden" too....so to speak.

I hear a lot about permaculture and xeriscape these days.  I approve of the techniques in principle, but wonder whether some of these landscape designers are actually gardeners.  I don't think "sustainable" gardening means "permanent" or unchanging.  The thing about gardens is that they change.  Despite our best plans, they respond to changing conditions that we cannot anticipate. And in some places, drip irrigation may do some good in repairing devegetation, while xericscape may not .  I am thinking especially of semi-arid places like colorado and nebraska.

I also worry that people think we can turn every backyard into a mini-farm.  many of us live in places where that's not a good idea because of different kinds of pollution, and in some places the carbon footprint of making a produce garden may never justify the savings.  You also can't be sure that your reduction in footprint will last forever.  Who knows what the next tenant or owner will want to do with your nice soil and rain barrel?

In one neighbor's huge small town back yard, there are two new features: a large pond with native plants and fish where there was never a pond previously, and a mini-golf  green with bunkers.  He thinks this is sustainable because it's his and it's green and it's watered by rain and, occasionally, water he buys from the city well and then filters for the fish.

I really like growing native plants as ground cover and for decoration.  These plants are available from a lot of organic growers, but I like Glacial Ridge Nursery best.

One benefit of native plants is that they are well-suited to the needs of butterflys that are native to a region.  In my prairie garden I have echinacea or cone flower (white, purple, and yellow), monarda in the original pale lilacy blue, blanket flower or gaillardia, cardinal flower, butterfly weed, black-eyed susans, and yarrow.  This patch is full of all kinds of butterflys, hummingbirds, and bees all season.  Because these plants either self-seed or send runners, I have a lot of plants to expand the plot and to share with friends.  I also feel I am preserving native seeds and plants.

A woodsy bit at the edge of my yard contains a mountain ash tree, a native cedar and some river birch clumps.  In the sunny edge we planted native blueberries, not as big as hybrids but very flavorful - when I can get any from the birds and squirrels - also some goosberries, which nothing seems to eat out from under us, and wild ginger, which is a lovely subtle plant.  Because this spot can be boggy one year and dry the next,  the north edge provides a background of dogwood, which adds color in the winter, and there are some marsh marigold that sort of come and go, depending on the year. We have a lovely little patch of horsetails, one of the oldest varieties of plants still growing on earth.

I am looking for some turk's turban or blackberry lilies, which I remember from a great-aunts farm grove many years ago - these always arrived like a surprise, and then suddenly were gone.  I haven't successfully established them.

I also have a regular vegetable garden and make my own compost for that, but I know I could buy these from a local CSA farm - I couldn't buy my woodland and native prairie, and may eventually just let them take over.  I love knowing that I am providing habitat and cover for for the soil, and making a small difference in GHGs' effects.

Organics are becoming local through Community Supported Agriculture - these CSA farms grow food by subscription: members pay an annual fee and agree to share the risk and the harvest of a variety of tasty fruits and veg, sometimes also eggs, dairy, honey, meat, flowers....

Most CSA farms are small, and have to find a niche not just in the marketplace, but in the platbook.  It's hard to afford farmland if you're young or just starting out, and it takes a while to break even much less make a profit.

In Minnesota a lot of organic farms sell to co-ops as well as to members.  The recent flooding has caused a lot of damage - a few days too much rain makes tomatoes burst, or just taste like, well, water.  A few days more makes a river run full of polluted run off run through the fields and, well that's all she grew.

Check with your local farmers and see how they are doing - if you're a csa member, be understanding about the problems weather and bad public policy (paving, damming, pollution) have on this worthy effort.