Lawns vs. Sanity

A wooden aqueduct, part of Santa Barbara's original water supply (destroyed in last year's wild fires) is somewhat illustrative of the necessity of fresh water for civilization.  

Recently, I was joking with a friend about the presence of lawns in Los Angeles. I think I concluded our conversation with a remark to the tune that, “It is utterly ridiculous to have a lawn in Los Angeles.”

A colleague, someone who teaches in the same horticulture program as I do, standing behind me, heard the comment and erupted into a tirade in defense of lawns and ended by declaring, and I think I'm pretty close to exactly what she said, “If we didn't have lawns, Los Angeles would be a hell hole!”

I was stunned. I thought I'd been transported back to the early 1960's. Such beliefs do not hold sway with the folks I know and I was shocked that a co-faculty member could hold this as a common truth.

Perhaps I'm being a little elastic. Could have been early 1990's. In my mind, wrecking other eco-systems to have green lawns went out of style a long time ago. No matter of the exact approximate date, by 2010 I thought even the village idiot knew that piping water from other places in order to have a lawn to look at was considered, at best, gauche.

After all, I would wager that 90% or more of the lawns in Los Angeles are walked on only when mowed. Like a Hummer H2 they are more to be looked at than driven.

But now, we are crossing beyond merely destroying our neighbor's ecosystems to water our pretty, but, worthless lawn. Currently, more and more, we are confiscating ('diverting' in our modern parlance – it means 'stealing') water that used to be used for agriculture. Water from the Colorado River, all up and down its course is being diverted to water lawns in Los Angeles, Tucson and many other cities. This water is not used for food production. That it is used to drink and bathe in cities does not bother me. But to divert this water from the river to indulge in the great luxury of a lawn is decadently selfish and unconscionable.

But to the direct assertion of “Los Angeles would be a hell-hole.” Some folks would argue it is one already and the grass we have has yet to ameliorate it so why the bother? I can only assume her concerns rest on the transpiration of moisture into the air by all this worthless grass. Plants release water into the atmosphere as they photosynthesize and all this grass around us photosynthesizing has to have some beneficial effect on our daily temperature highs. I'm sure she is right.

If you have only to choose between lawn and cement, I think lawn wins on being cooler, but concrete...  Concrete has it's own sustainability problems and it's not a choice we have to make, so it's a moot question. 

However, all plants release water as they photosynthesize, so grass is only one of thousands of plants we could choose to render us cooler. Only a precursory look, though, renders a conclusion that, of all the choices, grass ranks with other thirsty plants as the least desirable to help achieve this cooling. We have thousands of choices to cool us, and a good portion of those are drought-tolerant species. California oaks, needing no supplemental water in average years release some 280 gallons of water a day to help cool our atmosphere. Let's see: no water, no mowing, shade in the summer, beautiful leaves and 280 gallons in one day. Now, tell me again, why we need lawns in Los Angeles?

If low growing plants are essential to your well-being, then one of many of California's native grasses, sedges and other grass-like plants make lovely undulating lawns that neither drink excessively nor need mowing. They do better with some water, but nothing like the amount of water required by our lawn grasses. And there is a veritable cornucopia of California native plants that will photosynthesize and produce moisture in the air cooling our little 'hell-hole' quite nicely, all using less water than the ubiquitous lawn.

In fact, thousands of pounds (millions?) of good clean, healthy food could be grown in those same spaces and done so beautifully (as described in my upcoming book) using much less water than grass and which you will mow. There is no way to justify the ugly and horrible effects our lawns have on other ecosystems and there is no argument that sways me toward eating grass, even over eggplant!

In my mind, there is no line of reasoning that can be conjured to keep any private lawn.  To argue that they are essential for the cooling of our atmosphere is simply a ludicrous proposition I cannot accept. Lawns are a drain on limited resources, provide no benefit that cannot be better provided with less input from other plants and impart only a limited aesthetic appeal. I say yank out the lot of lawns.

If you must have lawn, may I suggest you find a climate that supports your choice. You, and your lawn, are not welcome here.

david

‘Greener Gardens’ at UCLA Extension

Orchid Black, shown from a recent tour of the Nature Conservancy's Rainwater Harvesting Demonstration site in Tucson, AZ. 

I’ll be teaching ‘Greener Gardens: Sustainable Garden
Practise’ at UCLA Extension starting Monday, April 5
with co-instructor Orchid Black. This will be the third time I've
taught this class, although this will be the first time it's being
offered as a twelve week course allowing Orchid to offer a more
thorough treatment (get it?) of water in the garden. We’ll be covering swales and  earthworks,  as well as appropriate use of greywater and rainwater harvesting, along with the basics of native and drought-tolerant planting. All aspects of sustainable backyard food will be addressed.

Following is a quote from the UCLA Extension website:
“Sustainability is today’s buzzword and many people seek to create a lifestyle with a more favorable impact on the environment.  From home and school gardens, to commercial sites, our gardens present the perfect place to start. Designed for horticulture students, gardening professionals, educators, and home gardeners, this course focuses on turning your green thumb into a “greener” garden. Topics include composting, irrigation, water harvesting, water wise plants, eating and growing local produce, recycling, and moving away from a consumptive, non-sustainable lifestyle when choosing materials and tools. … “ 

Teaching the class with Orchid will be a definite improvement for the course. In the past, she presented one night of water conservation which was obviously not enough depth. The class has been expanded from six sessions to twelve (half an elective to a full

elective) to allow her to develop the important issue of water conservation more fully and  allow students to come to a deeper understanding of sustainability in our world.

Here’s a link to UCLA Extension webpage for the class, which is still open:

https://www.uclaextension.edu/r/Course.aspx?reg=V6501

  
david

The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants

Jane S. Smith Author

Penguin (Non-Classics) (February 23, 2010)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0143116894

ISBN-13: 978-0143116899

Jane Smith gave a presentation to the Southern California Horticultural Society on her recently published (and soon to be published in paperback) book, The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants. I wish my UCLA Extension propagation class had been there. I bought the book, however, so everyone should expect to be regaled with stories from it over the coming weeks.

Burbank, before the world in general had grasped the implications of Mendel and Darwin's work, was busy putting his intellect into the art of breeding plants. He proved to be a genius at it and the catalog of his introductions over his lifetime is staggering! We owe to him the Burbank potato (over 150 years after its' introduction, it is still the most widely planted potato in the world); Shasta Daisy, a plant with four parents and a staple in cottage gardens world wide; and the Santa Rosa plum (and others) which is probably still the standard against which all red plums are gaged to this day. And MANY more!

His home in Santa Rosa, CA (hence the names of the plum and the daisy) is almost like going to Mecca for those gardeners who admire Burbank's work. This book, not so much a biography of the man as it is directed at his plant breeding, is perfect to understand the motives and the actions of Burbank, who still stirs controversy today. Some folks call him a huckster, some folks call him a charlatan. Others count Luther Burbank a hero and an extraordinary genius, up in the pantheon with Mendel, Darwin and others working in this field.

One story that I thought would be wonderful for a propagation class, involved a banker who had purchased a quantity of land that he wished to plant into orchards of plums. In February, he placed an order for 120,000 plum trees to be delivered that November. Burbank accepted the order and set about to fulfill it.

He planted fields of almond trees, a very fast growing tree in the same family and closely related to the plum. In late summer, Burbank grafted plum buds to all those trees which were dug and sold that November.! Not only was is it quite a cash windfall that Burbank could use, good reputations have been built on a lot less! It heaved Burbank's already god-like status deeply into the stratosphere.

Although I have only started the book, I think it will be a fine read to tear through on a week without a class. And it will be right in tune with teaching propagation to gardeners!

david

Botanical Interests Provides A New Button

From the seeds given to the Venice High School Horticulture program, I plucked this packet of eggplant to show you the beautiful art work on a Botanical Interests seed packet and to show the price of $1.59 which is a pretty good price for a gram of eggplant seed.  Mind you, this packet might be from a previous year's production so eggplant seed might be slightly higher, but still a good deal by any standards.  And I've learned you won't be gouged on shipping charges either!

I'm pleased to call everyone's attention to the newly added direct link to Botanical Interests Seeds on each of my blogs. A little bit about Botanical Interests that makes me proud to add this link to my garden writings, besides the fact that they'll give me a small commission on everyone who orders seeds by using that button:

• Botanical Interests has signed the Safe Seed Pledge guaranteeing NO GMO seeds in their listings. I consider this to be an essential commitment for any seed seller to get my business let alone my endorsement.
• They carry a solid line up of vegetable seeds, usually having one of the best prices in the business per packet. They don't carry all of my favorites, but a darn good lot of them.
• Many of the seeds are offered 'conventionally grown' or 'organically grown' when they can get the organic seed. The organic seeds are clearly marked so you can choose them easily if that's what you want.
• I like the packets and the information on each packet provides some lovely factoids which, just like one of my lectures, can make you the life of the next party you attend. Just pull out five or six seed packets and you can impress just about anyone who will listen. Never ever be at loss for something to say again.
• But the biggest reason I'm happy to put that button up here can be seed looking through the seeds donated to The Learning Garden and Venice High School's horticultural program over the years. Always high in the list of those donated the most seeds I have seen Botanical Interests time and again. Renee's Seeds and Seeds of Change have both sent along a lot of seeds too, but BI's prices nail the others to the ground. And it's quality seed in a bonus good looking, fun reading packet. Maybe one day we'll get them to do a story on the seed packets ala Burma Shave road signs! Wouldn't that be a hoot?

You probably won't find all the seed you want all the time from Botanical Interests, but the ones you do will be high quality and from a dealership you can trust to be honest and ethical. If you don't find all you want, please don't forget Seed Savers Exchange and Native Seed/SEARCH when ordering seeds also, they are the two non-profits I support and urge you too as well.

Hope will never die as long as seed catalogs are printed!

That's an old saw, I didn't make it up, though I wish I had.

david 

School Gardens Cultivate A Richness Some Fail To Grasp

Students at Venice High School's Learning Garden tend their plots on a sunny day last term.  The Learning Garden is one of Los Angeles' most successful collaborative school/community gardens in California, turning a one acre eyesore into a learning experience that is trans-generational.  David King is the garden manager (Gardenmaster) and teaches for UCLA Extension's Gardening and Horticulture Program.

In a recent article posted online by The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan opines that gardening as a part of a school curriculum is a waste of time and is, as her article is titled, “Cultivating Failure.” Ms. Flanagan has to do some acrobatics to come up with such a conclusion. She has painted horticulture with a brush that only sees it as manual labor and nothing more.

She loads her descriptions with powerful imagery that leaves one feeling she is hell bent on crushing some kind of sour grapes with her words. One could imagine her next article would be about the efficacy of feeding our students McDonald's and forcing them to stay inside for the entire school day. Her charge that a “recipe is easier to write than a coherent paragraph on The Crucible” evidences an elitist leaning and her evident phobia about science – God forbid that humans should be exposed to science, especially in a way that is real and fundamental to the human experience in, of all places, a school!

First and foremost, I want to call Ms. Flanagan's attention to the very real science involved in gardening, the raising of food and the preparation of food. She is evidently unaware that we all must eat and that culture, as Wendel Berry observed, is built on agriculture. She is obviously deluded by the propaganda that all food cultivation is thankless, back-breaking work for the shallow and uncluttered mind.

I wonder what she thinks of the obesity crises and why it is that just feeding a child a decent breakfast can raise test scores by 10 points (the least expensive way our society can raise those test scores!).  She seems to hold that test scores are the only judge of worth, although she doesn't seem to think that teaching to test scores will not affect other school programs that I trust she does value.

Flanagan has a palpable distaste for that Chez Panisse and Alice Waters that comes across as almost pathological. I have never eaten at Chez Panisse and the people I work with in school gardens all over Los Angeles, don't strike me as the Chez Panisse crowd. Mostly, we are middle/lower class and we are eat a pretty standard fair for our daily meals.

But we eat better than most Americans of all economic strata because we know how to to grow a lot of our own food and we know the value of fresh, wholesomely grown food. The cheap food that Ms. Flanagan sees her poor Mexican protagonist picking as she opens her sorrowful and misguided tale is not the pinnacle of a modern society. It is an eyesore that needs to be remedied. We, as a society and culture, need to come to a place where the growing of food is no longer the counted as the sweat of the ignorant – but the consumption of such food by the affluent ignorant must end as well. Ms. Flanagan's ignorance permeates her entire article and The Atlantic should be ashamed for stooping to such low standards of journalism.

Speaking of 'vacuous,' Ms. Flanagan has no statistics on her side. She quotes one or two folks who tell her that gardens are not on their agenda because they have to get students to score high on those tests. I would argue that the tests are as much an error and a misguided compass as are Ms. Flanagan's conclusions. She bases her conclusions on single instances of school scores (a population of one is not science).

I would argue that no society can be great that has such a disparaging view of agriculture as Ms. Flanagan seems to hold. I would suggest that no nation can be strong if it must import the bulk of its food. I would propose that a nation might have to go to war to insure its continued supply of petroleum from abroad, but such a tactic is doomed to fail if that same nation went to war to guarantee its food supply.

The author's command of science is short and her infatuation with language so bloated that I don't think any serious reading of the article gains a person any understanding of school horticulture and the role it plays or doesn't play in educating children. By her criteria, schools should abandon sports, theater, possibly journalism and any other activity that does not lead to higher test scores. The school must teach the exam and only the exam. With irony, one hears a teacher say to her, “I'm sorry Ms. Flanagan, we don't have time to teach The Crucible, it's not on the standardized exit exam.” I leave it to the many people she didn't quote, the people that heaped all those awards on Alice Waters to know what might be a better path to a well-educated high school student. Ms. Flanagan doesn't exactly have a record of school curriculum advances of her own.

I imagine she is capable of writing diatribes with the intent of provoking, but not actually doing anything. I ascribe to her all the depth of a political pundit who can only tear down the opposition but offers nothing of substance in return. I find her writing lively and lovely, but as shallow as a witty socialite who might declare, “Let them eat cake!”

That the California school system is broken and needs repair, a conclusion that cannot be refuted, cannot be honestly laid at the roots of school gardens.  That there needs to be a fundamental overhaul of our schools is obvious in many different ways beyond that exit exam.  Unlike Ms. Flanagan, however, I would argue that school gardens are the beacon of a new light that can shine throughout the school system. School gardens could become the beginning of a fresh approach to education that involves students in a learning atmosphere that is compelling and elemental.

It's entirely possible that we won't need farmers for the next sixty years (though I doubt it). Of course, because we all must eat, that food has to come from somewhere. A civilization as divorced from the food chain as Ms. Flanagan appears to be, is a disaster on the verge of crumbling.

This myopia cannot prevail.

david

Invasion of the GMO Frankenfood

Found on You Tube, from the imagination of Larry Leptin, a funny animated film provides seven minutes and 27 seconds of fun with the threat of GMO's in our food supply.  Though a light treatment, it provides a person with 'food for thought' as one of the characters learns, "GMO mutated food really is everywhere..."  Thanks to Facebook friend Sharyn Divavox for the link.  


david

It's Time To Stand Up And Be Counted Or Become Genetically Modified

 Corn from The Learning Garden shows remarkable genetic variation from one planting.  This genetic variation not only looks cool, but could provide the basis for important new corn varieties that might be needed in the coming global-climate-change decades.  We cannot risk ruining the living material that makes these colorful kernels.

I have a million things I need to do and I'm not really keen on sitting here and pounding out another blog post on Monsanto, but I'm deeply troubled and it's a trouble, like a bad back, that has kept brewing for a few years. It's way past time for us as a nation and as a society to come to terms with Monsanto; a company that has troubled me often in the past, and, in these past few days, there seems to be a harmonic convergence of information and news about Monsanto. Or would that be a 'disharmonic' convergence. Perhaps 'cacophony' would serve better...

In 2004, I took a trip to Kansas to Wes Jackson's Land Institute, a science based program to create perennial food crops that can grow and not harm the prairie's of the mid-West that modern farming has decimated (together lets all say 'dust bowl' read Timothy Egen's book, The Worst Hard Time for a vivid – and chilling – description of that decade long phenomena). The keynote speaker that year was the award-winning journalist Michael Pollan whose books I have reviewed, recommended and loved. And while I knew Wes Jackson (Becoming Native To This Place, a marvelous book that shaped me profoundly in the early 1990's) and others, one man was an unknown.

When I begin to describe Percy Schmeiser, tears well up in my eyes because no man in the civilized world should have to live the hell he lived, losing his farm and his livelihood in Monsanto's race to becoming Forbes magazine's 'company of the year' in a recent issue.

Schmeiser's fields, where he had been saving his own seed for over 20 years, became contaminated with Monsanto's Roundup Ready canola. Monsanto representatives trespassed onto his land, took samples of the plants and deemed that he was in violation of their patent (you can patent life nowadays, did you know that? One of Monsanto's most notorious avenues to get to be top dog in the seed business) and sued him for all he was worth – and in this case, that isn't just an expression. Mr Schmeiser had to file bankruptcy and lost everything he owned, including his farm, in the legal battle to protect his name and try to strike a blow for what he believed to be right.  (Up to date information was broadcast today by National Public Radio's 'All Things Considered' for further indictment of Monsanto's business practice in the farming world.)

This Monsanto campaign is well known in farming circles and has been documented in several films that have shown the disturbing tendency of Monsanto to sue the pants off anyone who doesn't play their game. Farmers who did not plant Monsanto seed are being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement if they don't pay onerous indemnity to Monsanto for their 'violations.' There are two salient points to this problem. The first I alluded to above in that Monsanto was able to patent their seeds, when US Patent Law was changed in the 1950's. Seeds are living things. They are not bowling balls or transistors or weed killers. They are life. No other country in history has ever granted patents for life itself. I can't put my finger on it, but my gut says 'this is WRONG.'

The other salient fact is that these plants are WIND pollinated. That means, a good gust of wind from your neighbor's farm could send pollen into your field, and even though you did not plant Monsanto seeds, the seeds your plants produce would have the telltale genetic markers for a Monsanto product. As reported in a research article in Euphytica, “Oilseed rape pollen has greater capacity for long-range dispersal than had been suggested by small-scale field trials. “ (Canola is the consumer word for the brassica plant that is otherwise called 'rapeseed.' Most of the rape seed oil is produced in Canada and so the name Canola was invented to make the oil more palatable to consumer sensibilities.)

I have often thought that Monsanto was cunningly astute in working with wind pollinated plants. They could contaminate much larger areas with their technology and, after the fact, announce that it was now impossible to retract the genie, “oh oops... look what we did!” Of course, the genie is not retractable and that is precisely why this is UNPROVEN technology. The twenty year trial to see what will really happen on down the road is happening now; in our stomachs, in our fields, on our children's immune systems and in the ecology of the entire planet. Never before (like the patenting of life itself), has the world been provided with such forbidding possibility of a disaster wrecking so many different facets of our lives. Monsanto's genetically modified corn was found in the wilds of Mexico. Monsanto hadn't planted it there – how did it get there? And worse, how much of that rich genetic material that is the heritage of all people who love corn was contaminated? What is the effect of rampant genetically modified pollen in the wild environment? What will happen (over generations) to the corn races of Mexico, the birth place of corn and home to the widest variation of wild genetic 'bloodlines' of corn from which we might need to draw in a future world facing global climate change or other disasters that are just bad 'business decisions' today?

What if this technology eventually is proven to kill off all the butterflies? Or the bees? Remember that it took over two decades to understand that DDT was killing off the eagle and other birds. What if this technology is the cause of immune system problems that take more time to understand? We won't know this until it's too late and Monsanto's directors have made a killing (would that be a 'too-appropriate' word?) in profits by ruining lives, ecologies and societies?

In fact, there is evidence that Roundup kills more than weeds. That is the very title of an article in the January 2010 issue of Mother Earth News. “French researchers have released a series of studies showing that glyphosate-based herbicides are toxic to human reproductive cells.” Over 100 million pounds of glyphosate are in use around the world in 2002 (last year with available numbers – it's surely higher today). (Glyphosate is the chemical name for the active ingredient in Roundup.)

“Most of the food we eat that contains corn or soy was sprayed with glyphosate herbicide, and we’re being exposed to higher and higher levels of residue. In response to petitions from Monsanto, the EPA has approved up to 20-fold increases in the legal residue limits for food crops.” So, you are eating this stuff every day – a lot more if you are eating processed foods, eating in chain restaurants (goodbye Norm's...), fast food or your school cafeteria. Read the article.

Now this might be just the beginning of a lot more disturbing news. Or it might not. But why were we allowed to be the test population for Monsanto's inventions? Monsanto and big Pharma work with the same business model as Union Carbide (remember Bhopal?): Make us the money now because we'll be bankrupt when it's time to clean up our mess. It is tiring to have to face off with people who have the ethics of a rabid dog constantly. But will we just wring our hands and mutter to ourselves?

In my earlier post, I listed companies that are Seminis seed dealers – Seminis is the name of Monsanto's seed business – and I asked everyone to not buy from those companies. Off line I was given a little flack because companies like Johnnies Selected Seeds really does sell a lot of seeds and it can be hard to get some of the old hybrids many of us have come to love (not on my lists of favorites, but F1 hybrids that many home gardeners love, like Big Boy or Early Girl tomatoes) because Seminis has bought up the companies holding the rights to those hybrids. I contend that giving ANY money to Monsanto feeds the giant and is only one of our few tools available to us.

Join the Organic Consumers Association's campaign against Monsanto. Plant open pollinated seeds in your garden (and join Seed Savers Exchange while you are there!) and grow as much of your own food as you can. Go to farmers' markets and ask the farmer what he grows, supporting only those who will look you in the eye and say they aren't growing GMO food. Write Forbes magazine and ask them what the hell were they thinking in making a rapacious and unethical monopolizing Goliath of evil their 'company of the year.'

It would be symbolic, but I have thought that the County of Los Angeles should follow Mendocino County in outlawing the growing of gentically modified organisms. Unfortunately, we have lives to live and I think the most radical thing of all is to grow our own and opt out of the poison-as- solution mentality that has ruined American farmland in these last fifty years.

Last note, because it will come up: We do NOT need Monsanto and it's technology to feed the world. That is a lie and has always been a lie. We do not need Roundup just like we did not need the so-called Green Revolution to feed the world. If this were true, the United States would not have over 10 million hungry people as estimated by a new study from Cornell University and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

david