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Jargon-Free Gardening

I just did something I love to do: surf the net looking at pictures of beautiful gardens. They’re so inspiring, especially when I look out my window on a late September morning and view my weedy, out of control garden. Next year I’ll plan better and stay on top of things, I like to promise myself.

Ancient Egyptians used "permaculture," too!

There was something off-putting about the surfing this time, however: I noticed all the trendy technical mumbo-jumbo. Perhaps because of my full-time career in academia, I’m sensitive to the over-use of jargon. These garden photos proclaimed their association with big words that actually belie simple origins. For example:

• Permaculture = the way our grandparents gardened
• Bio-integrated = the way our grandparents would turn the chickens into the garden to clear the weeds and eat the bugs
• Polyculture = the way our grandparents gardened because they wanted to have more than one crop to eat throughout the winter
• Regenerative gardening = taking a beat up patch up earth and gardening it the way our grandparents gardened.

It makes it even worse that most of the photos include some 20-something couple with their free-range toddler, their hair unmussed, and their skin clear of dirt even after a day of permaculture gardening in their cute little L.L. Bean Wellies. Sometimes one of them is holding a happy-looking chicken. There is almost always a dog present, a dog that apparently loves to wear bandanas around its neck.

Why does this bug me? Let's face it: I'm jealous of that couple! But a more intellectual reason is because it turns gardening or small-scale farming into a technical, textbook, jargony pursuit that, to me, goes against what’s beautiful about these techniques: that they are letting nature takes its course. Save the multisyllabic words for the GMO industry, please!

Another: because it’s all too trendy. If you tell people to eat better and exercise more to lose weight, that sounds boring and slow and hard - and anyway, that’s what their parents used to tell them and they’re sick of hearing it. Instead, they want a diet with a name and industry behind it: books, websites, expensive packaged goods coming in the mail. Same with gardening. If you tell people to take care of the soil and use mulch and compost to keep it healthy, and to reduce pesticides and herbicides because they’re ultimately polluting and harmful, and to get down on their knees and do some weeding, and to plant some flowers in the garden because they’re pretty and will draw nice insects - all that sounds boring and slow and hard. But tell them that they’re part of the “permaculture revolution” or the “regenerative farming movement” or the “trend toward urban polyculture,” then maybe you’ll grab them (and their money and support and presence at your public lecture).

Unfortunately, trends don’t last. And science and technical stuff are great, but they’ve also gotten us into some trouble when it comes to gardening and farming. What all these fancy names and trends stand for - getting back to nature - is supposed to be the antidote to all that. It’s supposed to be where the relationship between humans and nature becomes easier, clearer, more impulsive, more real.

So surf the web, grab some ideas, appreciate the fresh young beauty of millennial farmers as they stand outside their trendy tiny house. But then go plant something and enjoy watching it grow. Let your hands scoop into the soil. Appreciate the process. And call it something simple, like “gardening.”

The Individual vs. the Species

I recently read an amazing book: American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West, by Nate Blakeslee. It tells the story of the release of wolves into Yellowstone National Park, and it follows “characters” in a novelistic style: the wolves themselves, the elk hunters who hate the wolves, the politicians, and the various employees of U.S. Fish & Wildlife who have to balance the science, the wildlife, and the politics. It’s a fascinating read - just the kind of book I would love to write. 

One of the tensions described in the book exists between those who see wolves as a species and those who see wolves as individuals. It is easy to fall in love with the individual wolves as Blakeslee describes their struggles to survive, find mates, protect their young, hunt and feed, and maintain their territory. A wolf life is a hard life, and you can’t help but admire an individual who is particularly good at the game or overcomes enormous obstacles to come out on top. When a hunter kills Oh-Six, a magnificent wolf with an online following from around the world, her loss destroys the pack altogether. Oh-Six’s fans are so enraged that they come together to turn the local anti-wolf political tide.

Wolves chasing bull elk in Yellowstone.
Photo by Doug Smith, Public Domain.

For hunters and many FWS employees, however, the emphasis is on the species. As long as the species is healthy and has sufficient numbers to survive, the loss of individuals cannot matter. Hunters have played a role in maintaining the health of many species, either by promoting habitat or culling overpopulated numbers. To them, the presence of too many wolves lowers the number of elk drastically, meaning that hunters cannot enjoy hunting as many did before. And before you start dismissing these hunters as nothing better than the trophy hunter who killed Cecil the Lion a couple of years ago, remember that many hunters are subsistence hunters, providing meat to their families that would otherwise be unaffordable or because they believe that meat from the factory farming system is unhealthy.

I started reading another book a couple of years ago about scientists trying to figure out bird migration and nest-building patterns among migrating songbirds. They would wreak havoc on individual birds in order to understand the species better. For example, they would kill or relocate males to assess how and when other males would move into their territory. I was so upset that I couldn’t continue reading. I kept thinking: what do those individual birds care about the species? You’re ruining their lives! I feel the same when I hear about efforts to keep nearly-extinct species extant by caging them and raising them in captivity so that maybe they can be released into the wild someday. If we could ask these individuals whether they wish to sacrifice themselves as individuals to save their species, what would they say? And yet how can we sit by and not do everything possible to keep species from going extinct?

Laos Cattle Keeping, photo by ILRI Stevie Mann.
CC NY-BC-SA 2.0

All of this seems to boil down to what “use” we see animals serving. And culture matters here. Those of us who are taught to see animals primarily as pets or as objects to be viewed at a zoo may be more likely to anthropomorphize them, or give them the human qualities that allow us to see them as individuals. Those whose cultural context shapes them to see animals as populations to be studied or managed are able to look at the woods rather than the trees. And then there are those people in the world who live closely with animals as part of their livelihood; they seem able to take both views at once. They have to distance themselves from the animals as individuals in order to herd, transport, or kill and butcher them. And yet, living so closely with them, they come to notice and admire their individual traits and tendencies, what many would insist are their “personalities.”

Who is right? Which attitude is best for the short- and long-term wellbeing of wildlife? It’s hard to say. Maybe we need the combination of perspectives, and the push and pull of debate, to reverse the harm we have done to the world’s wildlife. And Blakeslee's book offers a poignant reminder: we must also try to understand one another and the human experiences that we bring to the debate.

That Bomb Cyclone is Gonna Open Up a Can of Whoop-Ass on the East Coast, Y'all!

It’s no surprise that those of us who love our pets and other animals tend to anthropomorphize, or project our human emotions, onto them. But storms? Come on.

Hurricane viewed from the International Space Station.

During the terrible 2017 hurricane season, many newspaper headlines described the “fury” or the “wrath” of a particular hurricane. “Menacing” “monster” storms “ravaged” human settlements. I kept waiting for some newspaper in the South to claim that a hurricane was gonna “open up a can of whoop-ass” on some poor coastal city, but the media never quite went that far. (So I’ve done it myself, in the above headline.)

And now we’re hearing about the “bomb cyclone.” According to Wednesday’s Washington Post, the bomb cyclone is quite a nasty human being. After it “blasts” the East Coast, it’s going to “punish” it, “assault” it, and “batter” it. East Coast people take note: you need to get a restraining order against that son of a bitch! Meanwhile the polar vortex is going to take it easy and do some uncorking. No, not of wine, silly. According to the article's headline, it’s going to “uncork tremendous cold.”

Hurricanes are natural phenomena that develop because of water temperatures and wind. They hit where they hit. They’re not particularly angry about anything. If anything, I would expect them to be happy that rising global temperatures may make better conditions for hurricanes. Why must we turn them into angry, vengeful human beings - even menacing estranged boyfriends on a mean streak after getting out of prison - in order to get the point across that they cause a great deal of damage and death and heartbreak?

Likewise, a bomb cyclone is simply a low-pressure storm that suddenly intensifies, causing high winds and winter weather. I lived in Boston for eleven years, and we were pretty darn used to icy temperatures and extreme snow. We used simple, descriptive names like “Nor’easter” to describe these storms, i.e. a blizzard that blows in from the Northeast. Oh, sure, we might have called the storm “wicked,” but that was not a judgment about the moral failings of an anthropomorphized storm. We used that term for a lot of things: wicked good pizza, a wicked fast car, and so on. Using the term “bomb cyclone” is not going to make the snow any easier or harder to shovel off the sidewalk.

Au Revoir, Summer!

It’s August - better known as the month I ruin by complaining the whole time that the summer is almost over. I love spring and early summer: the birds, the soft sunshine, the longer days, and the relaxed let’s-get-together-outside nature of friendships. But in August, the birds grow more quiet. The garden goes from abundant to weedy and overgrown. The sun seems too hot and the days too short. And the first day of the coming semester looms like a shadow over my carefully-cultivated summer-break calm and tranquility.

"Baby Eastern Bluebird" by Mark Theriot CC BY-NC-NC 2.0

But, as often happens when I take a long walk down our country road, nature had a lesson to teach me this morning. I was reminded that life comes in seasons and the fullness of life doesn’t diminish in fall and winter. It simply changes. Even though the birds may get quieter and begin to migrate away, there is still a wonderful bird-ness about August. Today I saw flocks of blackbirds and Canada geese feeding on the cut grain fields. I saw young, speckle-breasted bluebirds, trying their hand at hunting for insects, which are plentiful in the August heat. In fact, I saw lots of juvenile birds, and heard them, too; the beauty of the dawn chorus has been replaced by the amusing sounds of recent fledglings trying to mimic the adults. I heard a Northern Flicker cry out over and over again, in a time with the adults have mostly grown silent - it even attempted drumming a few times against the hollow wood of a snag. A fluffy little blue jay, in a rare moment of vulnerability for such a tough, canny species, cawed over and over again.

"Mother's Love" by Victoria Samuel USFWS CC BY 2.0

And then I looked through binoculars at a funny brown spot at the edge of the distant wood and made out a turkey, and then another turkey, and then lots of turkeys straggling in and out of the boundary of the wood: four hens and the twelve poults of their collective nursery. Later I saw a fawn, grown quite big but still with spots, looking at me curiously. Then it followed its mother across the road and disappeared into a cornfield. August is still alive - and magical.

And I relearned the rather trite lesson that everything has its season. We must move on to fall, and fall will be beautiful in its own way. Then there’s Christmas, and winter, and those first couple of snowfalls are indeed breathtaking. There may be fewer birds left at that point, but they’re easier to get to know. They spend their time nearer to us as we bring food to the feeder and crack the ice on the birdbath, and we can observe them more readily on the bare branches of trees. Then, just when we think we can’t take winter any longer, there are those marvelous days of March that hint at spring. Slowly, once again, the world comes back to life. And then I spend another August trying not to lament the end of summer.

"Sunset over Cornfield," by Johan Neven CC BY 2.0

I think we’re seasonal creatures living in a culture that tries to erase the seasons. We live a moderate-temperature life in our homes, no matter the weather outside. We buy strawberries and apples all year round. Christmas decorations show up in Walmart starting in September. It feels good to be outside on an August day, observing the specific pulse of life that happens only in August, and to bid summer au revoir rather than adieu.

Litter, Litter Everywhere!

 Is it just me, or is our litter problem getting worse? I live on a country road in Maryland, and every day there are more plastic bottles, McDonald’s sacks, beer cans, paper napkins, and Big Gulp containers than the day before.

One of the many ways that plastic trash can affect the health and growth of
wildlife. Photo by Ian Kirk from Broadstone, Dorset, UK CC BY 2.0

Not only is the litter unsightly, it harms wildlife. One of the reasons animals get hit by cars is that they are attracted to roadsides and medians by the delicious smells of our litter. The last couple of times I’ve gone up Interstate 81, a 60- or- so-mile stretch from Hagerstown, MD, to Harrisburg, PA, I’ve noted ten or more dead birds of prey along the median - an alarmingly high number for that amount of space! The median is covered with litter, which no doubt attracts mice, which no doubt attract red-tailed hawks, which are no match for the steady stream of 18-wheelers going down the road at 65 miles per hour.

Food trash on the side of an Arkansas highway

I keep thinking about four possible explanations for all this litter. First, we are eating more and more crap from fast food restaurants and gas stations, which require plastic forks, plates, and cups, and paper napkins. We buy this unhealthy stuff, eat it in our cars, and then pitch it out the window. It makes me sad to think that most of the litter is from completely unnecessary purchases of so-called food that, for health reasons, we shouldn’t be consuming in the first place - and that we’re consuming our meals in our cars instead of at home with our families.

Second, in some places, local governments are providing fewer services, including trash collection. In our rural area, we have to pay for both trash collection and recycling, and they are expensive. Some of our neighbors choose to pay a smaller fee and haul their own trash to the dump. And some people choose to throw their trash on the side of the road: big kitchen garbage bags full of waste, television sets, tires, and all kinds of other things that cost big money to get rid of.

Third, I wonder if the increasing litter is a sign of Americans’ decreasing interest in the social contract. We don’t trust our government, we don’t like our neighbors, we feel this country isn’t giving us enough, and so we don’t mind junking up the roadways, even in our own neighborhoods. Think I’m making this up? I was talking to someone just the other day who said he never used to litter but now he does. His explanation? “I hate this #%!*ing state!”

Finally, I can’t help but think that the litter problem is related to our attenuated relationship with nature. Important books have been written in recent years about how we are spending less time in nature and how that harms us physically, emotionally, and psychologically - especially children. Perhaps people do not appreciate nature as a rich setting that we share with trees and animals and insects and depend on for clean air and water; perhaps instead people see it as empty space, a wasteland that may as well be trashed as not.

What do you think?

Stoopid Birds!

I often hear people make comments along the lines of: “Today a bird flew right into my window. Stoopid bird!” or “Stoopid ducks - why are they crossing a busy highway?”

But what’s really stupid - or maybe “silly” or “surprising” or even “horrifying” is the better word - is that we as humans have the expectation that wild birds should figure out our unnatural human world and make accommodations for it. In the last few decades, we seem to reason, wild birds should have evolved an understanding of reflective windows in houses and how dangerous they are. And they certainly should have figured out what a highway is and how to avoid it, even if it is inconveniently located between a prime nesting spot and a desired body of water.

"Barn Swallow," by Linda Tanner CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In fact, birds make surprising accommodations to our human world and its infringement on their own. In The Bluebird Effect (one of my favorite books!), naturalist and artist Julie Zickefoose writes that in multiple incidents recorded in the U.S. and Japan, barn swallows have figured out how to open the sliding glass doors in big-box stores and warehouses. They identify the motion-activated electric eye unit and hover in front of it until the doors slide open. Then the birds quickly fly in (or out) before the doors close. Successive generations learn the technique from their parents, such that a Home Depot in Maplewood, Minnesota, has had a barn swallow colony return every year to nest inside the store since 2000!

"Put Me Back! House Finch Greets the World,"
by John Flannery CC BY-SA 2.0

And this article and video summarize a recent experiment by Mexican scientists seeking to explain why urban house finches have the odd behavior of stuffing discarded cigarette butts into their nests. The scientists theorize that it’s a pest-control technique: the cigarette butts ward off blood-sucking ticks that otherwise infest their nests. It turns out that nicotine has some anti-parasite properties.

Despite these happy stories, overall our human world is changing the bird world much too fast for the birds to keep up. Bird numbers are declining - alarmingly fast for some species - because we’re clearing their habitat, poisoning the insects they eat and the water they drink, interfering with their migration by putting windmills in their path and lighting up the night sky, and so on. (For more information, see the 2016 State of North America's Birds report.)

Even the clever little house finches haven’t yet caught on that those discarded cigarette butts - one of the world’s greatest sources of environmental pollution, by the way - are causing genetic damage to their chicks by interfering with cell division. But doesn’t that make us humans, the ones who throw out the cigarette butts in the first place, the stoopid ones?