- A Decade of Change in the Victory Garden - Claude Monet
Emerson wrote that the Earth "laughs in flowers." She also speaks in bees, and cries– and downright shouts in storms. Gardeners, if they are to cultivate success, listen to what the Earth is saying: this requires a basic understanding of living pictures, kinetic, terrestrial hieroglyphs.
My gardening career started at about age five, when I discovered several flowers that would grow quickly and faithfully in poor soil. These buds were nasturtiums, morning glories, and what I thought then to be geographically unlikely California poppies. While I could understand why these cups of gold would be the state flower of California, it amazed me that they would make a home atop the anthracite mountains of Pennsylvania. Yet, they grew lavishly, something I credit not to any climatic luxuriance of Zone 5 but rather simple meteorological stability, predictable seasons. Decades later, and with much gardening experience evident under these fingernails, all three reliable flowers, struggled to bloom in the Victory Garden this season.
Changes Evident in the Victory Garden
Disease has also become far more rampant, with rust engendering a particularly flagrant problem. Organic neem oil proved to be a great help in treating a wide variety of these sad visitors; however, my experience shows that it takes time for the neem to kick in. Both the gardener and plants must demonstrate hardiness as patience wth neem, since while most of the diseases are now either at bay or obliterated, it took a month of weekly oil treatments to accomplish this -- and not all plants survived.
Roses and Calendulas for Christmas
While roses and calendulas have endured in the yard up until Christmas – something that should not happen in Zone 5 – the fruit trees are blooming now as much as a month earlier than scheduled. This has led to a documentable trend: late spring snow or ice storms, knock out the blooms, leading to a year without fruit, and in some cases extreme shock to the fruit trees, which genetically expect some degree of climatic consistency.
Ideally, we all strive for the Goldilocks Victory Garden, that place where conditions prove to be just right. As an organic gardener, I have done my part to create such a scenarios, but my partner, the Earth, is struggling to comply, as drastic change over a simple decade points to accelerated climate change, something which must, at least cause us to think about the deeper causes before the cornucopia turns to dust.
Maria Jacketti - I have been a writer and writing teacher for nearly thirty years. My books in print include Neruda's Garden, Maremoto: Seaquake, ...
