by Lowell Bliss
Yesterday was planting day in our backyard. I put in tomatoes, sweet corn, peppers, onions, beets, green beans, peas, and carrots. I did not get everything done that I wanted to, so this evening after work, I’ll plant my vine crops (pumpkin, squash, zucchini, cucumbers) and my leaf crops (spinach, cabbage, kale, lettuce, arugula). The girls took over the butterfly and bee patch (i.e. pollinator-friendly flowers) and also the herb section (basil, mint, chives, oregano, and rosemary.)
I’m actually NOT a big gardener, so why did I go big this year? The reason is simple: because I went small last year. I went first-time last year. I went experimental last year. I went learning curve last year. Last year was the first summer we had spent in our new home in the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario, CA. This Ontario soil, this Great Lakes climate, this northern latitudes planting season—“Toto, I know for a fact that we are not in Kansas anymore,” and certainly not in the Kansas of my childhood when I was in 4-H trying to win blue ribbons at the Geary County Fair for my green beans. Last year, I plowed up the grass in only a small portion of our backyard and planted three tomato plants, and two hills each of cantaloupe and watermelon. I learned that three tomato plants are enough to keep our family supplied with quart jars of spaghetti sauce and salsa for twelve whole months. I learned that watermelons and cantaloupe wish we had never left Kansas.
Thinking about a garden this year coincided with the beginning of the pandemic here in Canada and the stay-at-home orders here in Ontario. Even though I am a nature lover and a creation care advocate, I’ve never been greatly interested in the eco-system which is my own backyard. Back in Kansas, I’d head out for a hike on the Konza Prairie or along the Kansas River. Here in Port Colborne, my habit is to walk the dog almost every morning on Nickel Beach on the north shore of Lake Erie. But in March, when I went to Nickel Beach and saw a padlock on the gate (as per city-mandated social distancing dictates), I knew that my own small backyard was going to figure more greatly than ever in what it meant to “be in the great outdoors.”
Thinking about a garden this year also coincided with the beginning of the economic shutdown, and of what we are likely afraid to admit will be a full-blown recession and/or depression. My oldest daughter was laid off from her job and moved in with us. There have already been disruption in various food supply chains (both globally and locally), and our local stores have experienced some glitches in the availability of flour, meat, and cheese, which make the toilet paper scare seem even more ridiculous than what it already was. Consequently, I am ready to restock our pantry with another twelve months worth of spaghetti sauce and salsa, but this year I’m hopeful for jars of pickles and freezer bags of beans and peas too. I think of this in terms of food security, not only for my family, but also for my extended family in St. Catharines, and for my local community here in Port Colborne. (I can look out my back window and see the community food bank over in the neighboring block.)
I’m not a doomsday prepper, but as part of my work, part of my responsibility as a climate leader, I have been systematically researching possibilities for the future. One of my favorite sources on this study, Jem Bendell of Deep Adaptation fame, has taken a lot of flack, accused of doom and gloom, and of giving up on climate action. But Bendell primarily wants to mobilize us to have a series of conversations around a set of promising, society-transforming questions. One of his questions is: “Restoration: what is it that we can bring back to reduce harm?” Fair enough, right? There is nothing wrong with that question, is there? Of the things we can bring back, let’s bring back gardening. . . and canning/food storage.
Grow just one vegetable plant this summer. Tear up one square foot of that lawn of yours, and plant your one vegetable in a small patch. Or if you live in an apartment in the city, choose a vegetable plant that you can grow in a pot on the balcony.
Just one; unless last summer, like me, you already have grown “just one.” If so, then keep acting experimentally. Keep learning more about your local eco-system, or about gardening and new plant varieties, or about food storage, or about food security in your community. You are already on the path of joining in the call to become “A Nation of Farmers.” That’s the title of a brilliant compendium of hopeful examples by Sharon Astyk and Aaron Newton. Their erstwhile subtitle is “Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil,” but here is their real subtitle: “How City Farmers, Backyard Chicken Enthusiasts, Victory Gardeners, Small Family Farms, Kids in Edible Schoolyards, Cooks in their Kitchens and Passionate Eaters Everywhere Can Overthrow our Destructive Industrial Agriculture, and Give us Hope for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness in a Changing World.” Astyk and Newton certainly have an agenda, but then again so did President Roosevelt during World War II when he put out a national call for Victory Gardens. The Cuban government also had an agenda in 1991 when it put out a call to her citizens: “Plant food. Every one of you: plant food.” Cuba was known for its sugar crop and nearly all of it was exported to the Communist bloc. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba lost its main export market, but also lost its import market for food and for agricultural inputs like fertilizer. They faced near-term starvation. Plant food, the government told their citizens. If you see a bare patch of ground, plant it. If you see a vacant lot or the meridian in a street, it’s yours for this next harvest season; plant it in food. Feed yourself. Feed your children. Feed your neighbors.
When I first read Astyk and Newton’s book ten years ago, I enjoyed the hippie, organic, visionary narrative of it. We even took a turn being “backyard chicken enthusiasts,” but to tell you the truth, here in 2020, while we are still lock-downed by virus, laid-off by economics, and Jem-Bendelled by climate change prospects, I find the stories of Victory Gardens or Cuba’s mobilization to be much more immediate. I also find Astyk and Newton’s playful subtitle to be counter-productive. Back when I was in 4-H (circa 1976), the fanciest thing about gardening was the term that 4-H gave it: horticulture. It was basically putting some seed into some tilled-up soil, watering it regularly, and complaining about our summer chores (“no TV until we had spent an hour in the garden pulling weeds.”). Since those years, for the prospective beginner, gardening has become increasingly esoteric: composting, raised beds, heirloom varieties, mulch, soakage hoses, seed saving, planting combinations, multiple harvests, “master gardener” certification, organic fertilizers, pollinators, etc. For those who love gardening, this just speaks to the great joy and the endless learning curve. For others though, it can be overwhelming. In 1991 and 1992, Cuba almost did starve. Why? Because it’s impossible to become a nation of farmers in just one season. You have to start somewhere.
In 2020, in the year of the great pandemic, in the year of the new normal: start somewhere. Plant one vegetable plant as a seed for your own blossoming future. (And then tell me about it: I’ll love to hear.)