Island Grown Initiative (IGI) plans its second Poultry Day April 11 and invites the public to attend and participate at Agricultural Hall, from 9 am to 2 pm. For more information, contact Doug Brush at 508-693-2057 or flatpointpoultry@gmail.com.
With the strengthening sun and recent rainfall the grass is greening rapidly, almost before our eyes. A layer of mulch on weedy beds aids maintenance and weed removal. Lawns are ready for liming and fertilizing and the first dandelion plants are evident. In a move to raise consciousness about applying toxics to an environment and water table already heavily burdened, I urge readers to do more digging of weeds and less spraying of herbicides.
The tiny I. unguicularis modestly help usher in the season.
Photo by Susan Safford
As groundwater residues in heavily agricultural regions demonstrate, it is now known that glyphosate (Roundup etc.) herbicides do not break down in contact with the soil, as advertised. I have learned to make dandelion roots and greens into salad and tea, a fine spring tonic (I know it sounds quaint) but, if you are not tempted by herbal cookery, they also add beneficial properties to compost.
Not only the does honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) place at risk the hives of local beekeepers, but worldwide it risks the successful harvest of hundreds of important food crops. Multiple causes - the usual suspects and then some - have been identified in the etiology of this AIDS-like honeybee problem, but extreme hygiene is the crucial tip that beekeepers can take from an article in Scientific American reporting on recent research: sciam.com/article.cfm?id=saving-the-honeybee.
Brent & Becky's Spring/Fall Flowering Bulbs catalogue is in gardeners' hands (brentandbeckysbulbs.com/). As usual it is a Technicolor delight, overflowing with great images of tulips, narcissi, and all the rest of the Good Spring Things. It is a source for the charming Iris unguicularis (photo) as well as other diminutive iris species.
The tiny I. unguicularis, about five inches tall, modestly help usher in the season in my dooryard garden. Nearby, showier cloth-of-gold crocus (C. ancyrensis), Siberian squills, and snowdrops out-shout the iris. The foliage, greyish green and grass-like, extends after the bloom, which is glacial blue with yellow flares and lavender dappling and veining. They are perfect rock garden plants. I am told they enjoy a protected spot with good drainage where they can bake in summer, but this I have not given them. Nonetheless they seem fine.
Abetting my dangerous slide into Galanthophilia, a web site, judyssnowdrops.co.uk/index.html, has proven to be a fascinating way to lose entire evenings. Thinking I had lost track of its web location, I found these two additional sites:snowdropinfo.com/bulbsforsale.htm and johnjearrard.co.uk/plants/ galanthus/galanthus.html. This spring I intend to redistribute and disperse the increase that all these small bulbs have achieved. In fact, with the eye-blink of sunshine that is occurring right now, I am bolting from my desk....
I previously wrote about the mysterious disappearance of winter-flowering heath (Erica) flowers and wondered who the culprit might be. Having caught the guilty party in the act, I now know it is indeed the chickens' delicate pecking; which brings to mind the relationship of domestic poultry to the grouse that inhabit the extensive moors of Scotland. Grouse are said to relish and thrive among the heath and heather (Calluna).
One of the reasons I subscribe to the monthly print newsletter, the Avant Gardener (AG), is to share its timely contents with Garden Notes readers. Another is that Thomas Powell, its redoubtable editor and publisher, scans and digests hundreds of gardening resources. He would be writing my column and I would be guilty of outright plagiarism if I reported on every interesting topic that is within AG's eight simple mimeographed pages. One's own subscription costs a mere $24 per annum and I recommend signing up. Horticultural Data Processors, POB 489, New York, N.Y. 10028.
A front-page lead article in April's AG is a précis of recent scientific support for the nutritional superiority of organically grown food. "Numerous studies reveal that as yields of crop plants rose, nutrient content fell. Increased applications of chemical fertilizers ... resulted in declines of 5 percent to 40 percent in some minerals in vegetables.... Recent work shows that in 43 garden crops, protein content has declined 6 percent and content of three vitamins has decreased 15 percent to 38 percent since 1950."
Yearly as April 22 approaches, I unhappily anticipate the chorus of well-meaning, ritualized tributes to Earth Day that will surely appear. One Earth Day a year amounts to 364 days of inattention. What are we thinking the rest of the year?
Camilla Cavendish writes the following, from a longer column in the April 3 edition of the Times (London). Although the recent G20 economic conference is its subject, this excerpt echoes my concerns and those of many others:
".... A third slogan is that "growth is good", and that more growth will help nations to bear the costs of eliminating pollution. But many ordinary people who read about the mass extinction of species, the unprecedented loss of forests and climate change, are starting to ask whether GDP growth always equals improvement. They wonder whether there could come a time when the environmental costs of growth outweigh the social and economic benefits. This is a question that politicians can't even afford to acknowledge, because they survive by selling growth to their electorates...."
Local media report on the hopes of businesses for an increase in tourism/commerce; national media focus on a return to normalcy after this, um, bump in the road. I suggest that fundamentally flawed values make this little more than institutionalized denial. As we contemplate spring, our gardens, our community, our planet - can we please put more exertion into resolving the warring requirements of wealth-creation and life on earth?
