In the world of gardening, particularly vegetable gardening, there is a raging debate – heirloom versus hybrid.  It is a subtle one that has been overshadowed by that whole organic versus chemical debate (which is so fierce it can occasionally cause sharp cutlery to be pulled out at respectable gardening clubs around the world).

Heirloom versus hybrid. Nature versus nurture. Vinyl versus download. Edward versus Jacob.

And it can get confusing, especially for a new gardener, whose only exposure to the word “hybrid” thus far is shortly followed by the words “save the planet, buy now, zero percent interest financing available”.  Hybrid is best, right?

And here is where the debate rages. It is a healthcare debate in a two party garden system. Which is better, hybrid vegetables or heirloom vegetables?  And before you assume I am firmly on one side or the other, I will let you know that I am not.

First, let’s define the issue.

Hybrid vegetables are generally regarded as newer varieties that were bred specifically for mass consumption and for certain mass interest traits. Things like disease resistance, superior production and even an inability to reproduce can be bred into hybrid varieties.

Heirloom varieties are generally over 100 years old and have been bred for local cultivation. They are often bred for color, flavor, size and local weather condition resilience.

So which is better?  Just like your religious affiliation or favorite color, it is really, really a personal decision.

I personally do grow mostly heirlooms, but I normally throw a few hybrids in there as a failsafe.  As mentioned, hybrids are bred to survive and heirlooms are bred to please.  Give me a good heirloom tomato any day, but I have to say that I do look with some longing across the fence at my firmly hybrid growing neighbor’s garden every summer and envy her superior production. In my mind, heirloom versus hybrid is more of a quality versus quantity issue. Both have merit.

Yes, hybrids have squeezed out the heirloom varieties in terms of what people produce. In their corner, hybrids have a multi-million dollar industry lobbying for it while heirlooms are a grass roots effort. Industrial production stomping firmly on the old ways.

But, you also have to consider that there is a survival of the fittest factor going on here.  No matter how you cut it, for your average home gardener, hybrids just perform better.

I think that we as gardeners need to find a balance. Make space in the garden to save history while still enjoying modern advancements. Think of it as playing Mozart on your iPod.  The two can coexist.

I often find that my garden is not only a source of eternal delight (normally followed shortly by frustration, but that is another article) but of eternal enlightenment. I am fairly certain, in between saving the world from evil and ignorance and making great speeches with timelessly quotable material, the great men and women of history were gardeners.

Where else would these people have gained all of their wisdom and insight but in a garden? Ok, so there is books, life experience and just plain old genius, but beyond that, where else but a garden?

I am reminded of this when pulling quackgrass.  Yes, that insidious, nightmarish weed that can take over a flower bed faster than Tiger Woods can move through a sorority. That quackgrass. There is a Tao in quackgrass. And here you thought it was just a weed.

Just a weed! I shout from my quackgrass infested flower bed. This is a lesson. It is an opportunity to learn a great secret that my garden wants to whisper to me but can only speak in botanical octaves.  My garden, she speaks to me in weed (not the kind you smoke, though the enlightenment can sometimes seem to be the same).

On hands and knees with fingers reaching, I find the blades of quackgrass and revel in the wisdom.

Lesson number One – All quackgrass is connected. Looking at a large bed of it, you would not think so and pull at a blade quickly, and they do not seem connected at all.  But it is. Deep and low, the roots bedevil through the soil, leaving new quackgrass in its wake.

Lesson Number Two – Impatience is quackgrass’ friend. Ripping quickly and angrily at quackgrass will not make it go away. As a matter of fact, it will only bring you sorrow – in the form of more quackgrass.  The best approach to quackgrass is a slow, steady pressure starting at the base of the grass. One that will reveal to us the root of the quackgrass and show us how it is connected to the others in the flower bed (see lesson number one).

Lesson Number Three – Conquering your quackgrass requires focus and persistence. Quackgrass cannot be eliminated simply by randomly pulling blades. Nor can you pull only a few blades of quack grass at a time. You must be determined. You must be methodical. Pull (slowly – see lesson number two) search pull search pull. One square foot at a time until it has been eliminated from your life.

Lesson Number Four  – Quackgrass will come back. No matter how often and well you deal with your quackgrass, it will come back. It is not a reflection on how well you as a gardener dealt with it the first time, it is simply a fact of life (see lesson number three).  Consider it a reminder of the Tao of quackgrass.

I was in the media again, mentioned along side such greats as You Grow Girl, Garden Rant, Cold Climate Gardening, Gardening Tips N’ Ideas, May Dreams Gardens and Doug Green’s Garden. It was in an article in The American Gardener about how to start a garden blog (written by Doug Green). As always, I am flattered (and a bit bewildered) that anyone feels my blog is worth mentioning.

It appears that this article has touched off a bit of a discussion on Cold Climate Gardening about blogging, gardening and generational clashes. Kathy Purdy asked:

I’d especially like to know what would make blogging more appealing to older gardeners. (Older meaning old enough to be my parent, and I’m almost fifty.) They have a wealth of experience to share, but are the least likely to share it online.

Then, in response, Katie at Garden Punks

Why aren’t people in younger generations interested in gardening?!

I mention both of these comments because I think they are related, mostly in that I think there is a lot of misconception about them.

In response to Kathy’s question, many people replied that old people simply are not online. Having managed a site for a company that is targeted to senior citizens, I know for a fact that this is not the case. Senior citizens are the rapidly growing group online. So they are on the computer, they just choose not to blog. That doesn’t actually answer Kathy’s question, but it at least eliminates the most common answer.

In response to Katie’s question. I think younger generations do garden. I do see it. I know plenty of young people (25 – 35)who keep a vegetable garden or at least a few plants for pleasure. No, they are not as deeply involved in it as I am, they can’t go on and on for hours about it like I can, but they do enjoy plants and the act of growing something. They garden, as far as I am concerned.

There are many young (under 35) people who grow things and demure from calling themselves gardeners because they either feel they don’t have the right to or don’t want to be associated with the title.  Which worries me, because that means they consider gardening on the same level as stamp collecting or… air sickness bags collecting. That is a problem.

I have not one, not two but three trees growing in my kitchen these days. They had gotten too tall for the garden dungeon in my basement, so I have set up space and lights in my kitchen to overwinter them. I have a feeling that my mother-in-law will be rolling her eyes (discreetly, of course) at this. She does not approve of people who rearrange their homes to accommodate their plants. I think she thinks it is unnatural.

I find that I run into this attitude from a lot more people than my mother-in-law. There are many people who believe that favoring a plant or inconveniencing yourself in your home for a plant is somehow unnatural. It is just a plant.

I can’t name the number times I have heard that phrase. It normally used right after someone has wreaked havoc on a garden bed or has caused the untimely death of a beloved potted plant. It is also delivered as a muttered, under the breath retort to me as I shriek at the culprit. It is only a plant. Just a plant. What is the big deal?

My husband use to mutter those lines as well… until one day our mentally deficient cat leapt onto the shelf where he keeps his painted miniature collection. Gosh, do you know what 100+ hours of work and 50 or so miniatures look like when they fall to the ground? It looks amazingly like a flower bed that has been careless trampled by someone painting the house. He understood from that day forward and the cat surreptitiously got a can of tuna that night.

A gardener’s plants are more than just green oxygen machines. They are the investment of our time. Our time is a measured part of our life force. With every passing minute, we are one minute closer to death, so for every minute we spend doing something, such as nurturing a plant, we transfer the value of those minutes to the object of our attention during that time.

I am not simply rearranging my home to accommodate my plants. I am accommodating little pieces of my life. And, just for the record, I think I am perfectly justified in threatening to take a pair of pruning shears to anyone who messes with little pieces of my life. And for the winter, 3 rather tall pieces of my life will be occupying the kitchen and there is nothing at all unusual about this.

It occurred to me at the Food show why cooking shows are super popular and gardening shows are going the way of the dodo bird. There were two whys.

• Why #1 – Instant gratification. You spend 20 minutes cooking and you can have a decadent meal that impresses as well as satisfies. You spend 20 minutes gardening and you have a patch of dirt and the neighbors wonder if you are installing a mudpit for a pet pig.In the TV world, they can make a beautiful garden appear in 20 minutes. But they very rarely do. Yeah, so you can’t make it happen in real life, but most people can’t make the things they see on cooking shows either.
• Why #2 – Gardening shows don’t get Gen X. I remember cooking shows as a child. They were ghastly boring (no offense Julia Child). Guess what, gardening shows are ghastly boring – present tense. Cooking show got revamped so that trendy Gen X’ers would gobble them up while eating their Chinese take out. It just so happens that the rest of the generational masses thought we had pretty good taste.

The wise (and elderly) television executives think that *BAM* throwing a handsome hunk of meat on the screen will fix falling ratings. While overt sexuality is included in the new breed of cooking shows, it takes more than that.

While watching Alton Brown, it occurred to me that the only gardening show that has survived the ratings fallout of gardening shows in the past few years is “Gardening By The Yard”. I think the two shows have a lot in common, much to do with appealing to Gen X.

First, both are packed with knowledge. You don’t just get how to cook and garden, but the whys, whens and whos as well. Gen X’ers had parents who carefully explained every thing to us no matter how many times we asked why.  The doctors said it would fuel our curiosity and so it has.  We don’t buy “Because I said so”. 

Second, both shows have truly entertaining host. They seem to be average people talking about things they are passionate about. I would not expect to go to Alton Brown’s house and be served a meal that would win the world’s greatest prize (as a matter of fact, I watched him accidentally coat the stage at the Fabulous Food Show with taffy when the recipe fell apart). Don’t get me wrong.  It would be good, just not so good that it was intimidating. Paul James makes you feel comfortable, too. Like you can relate.

Gen X’ers never learned to respect our superiors.  We don’t call our bosses “Mr.”  We think of ourselves as equals and we want to feel like equals.  Friends, even.  One wiff of “you are better than me” and we lose interest.  Many of the good cooking shows, the hosts are just a little self mocking.  Like you might be among friends. Gardening shows very rarely do that.

I think what is killing gardening shows is their tendency to talk down. To educate without entertaining. Come on TV execs. I learned my ABC’s from Big Bird and manners from Mr. Rogers. I was weened on entertaining education. I think the generation behind me had TV screens installed in the womb, so this is just the begining. Don’t just teach me and talk to me like you are the boring teacher from 9th grade. Make me laugh. Make it fun.  Be my friend.  (Yes, we think of the TV as our friend, ok)

Gardening should be fun but most of the time… on the TV… it just looks like work.  Who wants to watch that?

Yesterday, I went to the Fabulous Food show at the IX Center in Cleveland. And it was truly FABULOUS. All I could think was “Wow, this is a hell of a lot better than the really lame Home & Garden show they put on every year.”

I went once to the Home and Garden show and was furious by the time I left. Not only was the ticket $20+ and parking was $8 (And since the IX center is in the middle of nowhere there is NOWHERE else to park), but there were hardly any demonstrations or presentations and booth after booth was filled with As Seen On TV ilk. I dare say that even Ron Popeil would have been ashamed. After that wallet emptying experience, I swore never to attend again.

I was a bit leery of the Fabulous Food show. After all, I still had to pay $20+ and I still had to pay $8 for parking. But Alton Brown was going to be there and I figured that even if the showfloor was a bust, seeing Alton Brown live was worth the money. It turned out that AB was just a bonus. Everything there was worth the money. Even the $8 parking. There were demonstrations galore. Wine tastings. Every booth was nice and had free samples.

Why is it that gardening gets treated like chopped liver and food gets treated like filet mignon (I mean beyond the obvious)? Gardening just does not seem to get any respect these days.

Last night, I took my kids to see The Lion King at Playhouse Square. Fun was had by all and I managed to sneak a little culture into the entertainment diet of my children. Granted, it was the last row in the theater and we brought binoculars so that we could make out the finer details, but much culture was gained by all.

But, kids, culture and nose bleed seats aside, I found something very interesting about the production of the Lion King. That was that many of the plants, grass, trees, jungle shrubs were actually parts performed by actors. The reason being was to give the impression of movement and change. When Mufasa and Simba are walking through the Savannah, grass does not just stand up stock straight and still. It undulates and shifts.  And the creators of this musical reflected that with human actors. There has been many a writer who has described grass plains as seas of land for the amount of movement you can see.

Plants and their movement often have more to do with the ambiance of scenes in our real life than we know. That really scary tree shadow that came through the window when you were a kid was scary because of the fact that it swayed in such a life like way. Dreamy days spent blowing the fuzz off dandelions would not be as fun if the fuzzies just stayed in place. Fluttering leaves in the fall help to give that magical feeling to the colors. Our gardens do not stand still frozen in time. The move, sway and grow to a natural music.

It was just nice to see that fact acknowledged in a staged production. It was attention to small details like that that made it the blockbuster that it was.

Image by Adrienne King

When I was in college, I was required to take a class my freshman year that focused on various -isms that we have here in the US. Of course, the big one is racism. The teacher was a brilliant female (and black) physiologist (whose name unfortunately escapes me), but she presented a class that opened my eyes in a way no other had. She did not harp on racism as most people know it, but rather the aspects of guilt and shame in society that drives the issue on all sides of the fences.

For example, one of the best questions she posed to us was “If a black man can be proud of being black, why can’t a white man be proud of being white?” Think about it, when was the last time you looked kindly on a person who said “White Pride”?

Anyhoo… She also spoke about the innocent blindness that most white people live with. And she was right, because when she held a “flesh” colored bandaid to her skin, it was the first time in my life that I realized I had never seen a bandaid made for anyone other than white people. It was probably not an intentional. Just, the people who made them were probably white and it just did not dawn on them.

Because of that class, I try to see those kinds of gaps in society, and I thought I was doing a pretty good job of it until I went to look at my website logs today and saw that a person had ended up on this site by searching for the phrase “black garden gnome“. Much like the bandaid demonstration, it smacked me up side the head that I had never seen anything but a white garden gnome.

I have in my time known a few black gardeners. And there is no more to that than to say obviously people with black skin garden too. As do Asians, Hispanics and Native Americans, and most likely any other skin tone or ethnic background you can think of. Gardening is a pretty universal thing.

So, the question is, Why is there only white garden gnomes? Is it because garden gnomes of color would be considered offensive? Like the old fashioned lawn jockeys (which are now all white as well). Does this issue go back to the Black Pride vs White Pride where one is socially acceptable but the other is not?

But then is it just as offensive to have a common garden decoration that focuses exclusively on the “dominate” (though quickly becoming minority) section of the population?

Or maybe it just never occured to garden gnome manufacturers to have anything but white gnomes.

Or maybe the truth is that only white people have the bad gardening taste to have garden gnomes in their yard (I have 3 personally).

And while we are at this, how about female gnomes? I remember very well from my Gnomes book that there are female gnomes. How come they are not represented as well?

I honestly don’t know whether to take this issue as a real one or just laugh it off. It is, after all, just garden gnomes. But maybe this is a case of fixing the garden gnomes first, then the world?

Zen – The practice of meditating to
achieve enlightenment. (Or something like that)

When I weed, I find my Zen. Normally the issues that are on my mind RIGHT NOW fall away and I just am. This is a rare moment in my life as a wife, mother, breadwinner and household with a working phone (damn telemarketers). People normally demand that I pay attention to them which leaves very precious time for paying attention to nothing.

Weed. Grab. Pull. Weed. Grab. Pull. Weed. Grab. Pull.

Very shortly you find yourself breathing to the rhythm of weeding and you just exist.

Then sometimes, if I am very lucky, a sort of epiphany happens. Suddenly I relate some thorny problem in my life to a solution that was always waiting for me in my garden.

When I am wrung out because of the report cards stating that my child is just not “performing well enough” and is “uncontrollable” (which is what it said the last three report cards), it is the drift of ditch lilies that reminds me that sometimes there are forces (and people) we were never meant to control and not everybody likes. That sometimes letting go allows a force, plant or child, to grow to become breathtaking. It also reminds me that a little firm guidance can’t hurt but that maybe the principal is no different than the nosy neighborhood nazi who thinks that all plants should be well landscaped and considers my yard a mess. I don’t care what she thinks, so why do I care what the principal thinks? (maybe I do a little, but I realize that maybe I should care a little less about both of them)

Pulling quack grass again reminds me that sometimes problems just don’t go away. Bills still come, husband and kids still need to be nagged to clean the house, dinners still have to be made. Simply throwing up your hands and giving up does not fix the problem. Keep pulling the quack grass and someday it will be fixed. At least I hope it will, but if not, at least it’s not getting worse.

My garden is my paradise, all overgrown and spilling onto yard and path, and may not look exceptional to the passing people, but in the end, it is my garden, so fuck what they think. I like my garden. It’s my garden, children, husband, life. I am okay with it. I am at peace with everything – even if the rest of the world is not.

If I am very lucky, this is what happens. If not… well, I still end up with a weed free flower bed. At least until, much like life, the same problems come creeping back and I have to remind myself all over again.

I read many books about food this vacation. It all kind of ties into my obsession with gardening. I think the whole reason I started gardening again (after suffering through dreaded chores in my mother’s garden) was because I simply was too poor in college to afford fresh herbs and unusual vegetables. I think the idea of really good food drives many people to garden.

But back on topic. Lot’s of books on food. I read The Nasty Bits by celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and Garlic and Sapphires by food critic Ruth Reichl and, as a very odd juxtaposition to those two, I also read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. All had come highly recommended and I enjoyed them all, but how odd they were to read together.

On one hand, there was a glorification of food, no matter the cost, no matter the price. Descriptions of food that would have made Gandhi want to break his fast. Then to read about the real cost of the food. The cost that you don’t pay for in dollars or cents but rather in morals and health. Oddly enough, as well, all three books at least touched on both sides. It made me think and it made me realize that maybe I need to somehow get interested in Danielle Steele because that was too much thinking for a vacation.

I love food. I love growing food. I love cooking food. I love (and mean really love) eating food. But being forced to face where your food comes from and what the real costs are… Well, let’s just say grocery shopping today was not as easy as it normally is.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not naive. I did, after all, grow up in farm country. I did, after all, grow up eating bacon while staring at the fridge where there hung the picture of the previously whole pig and its proud but tearful 4-H owner. I know just how much fertilizer and pesticides get dumped on crops and I know just how much farmer’s sacrifice to grow those crops. I just normally choose to ignore it.

A girl has to eat you know.

But now I am thinking about it and I just don’t know what to do. I just wish I could grow all the food I need right here on this tiny plot of land. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt that city ordinance would allow me to have a flock of chickens and weeds taller than 6 inches high.