We Are All Gardeners

April 2012

PICKAWAY TO GARDEN

We Are All Gardeners

By Paul Hang

Garden, noun 1. A plot of ground where plants such as fruits, vegetables and flowers are grown Gardener, noun, 1. Somebody who tends a garden or lawn as a profession or as a hobby. These are the definitions I found in my dictionary. I fall into the hobby category as do most who call themselves gardeners. As spring advances I'd like to propose that we are all gardeners.

Last month my reading and attendance at talks resulted in two ideas that stuck in my mind. One was in an article in Time Magazine titled Nature is Over. Some memorable statements hit home. "Humans have had a direct impact on more than three quarters of the ice-free land on earth. Almost 90% of plant activity takes place in ecosystems where people play a significant role." "Human dominance of biological, chemical and geological processes on Earth is already an undeniable reality," writes Paul Crutzen, the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist. We have changed from primarily hunters and gatherers 10,000 years ago with the beginnings of agriculture. Today "38% of ice free land has been cleared and cultivated for farming." Our numbers since the Industrial Revolution have burgeoned from 1 billion to 7 billion, with many more to come. There may soon be no room for nature as we have known it.

The second was a talk on the early Ohioans, the Adena and Hopewell peoples. The talk was based in large part from the book "1491." The point was that those early people did not live in a "Wilderness" but instead lived in a "Tendedness." They tended their environment in ways we are just beginning to understand. Without the benefit of iron tools they cultivated the landscape with fire and selectively protected valuable plants and animals. There is evidence they selected seeds from the "best" plants, burnt prairies to promote grasses for grazing wildlife, protected trees that produced nuts and fruits for their use. They were gardeners.

Humans have been managing our planet effectively for centuries. Again, n the Time article, "We were just doing it unconsciously as a by-product of our relentless expansion." "Our ability to comprehend the full extent of the human impact on earth puts us in a unique position as planetary gardeners, a responsibility we have no choice but to take on."

Nature has never been pristine as processes as elemental as volcanic eruptions, continental drift, and oxygen producing algae, to name a few, have been altering our planet since its beginning. Now we are one of the elemental forces. As we strive to exist, to live a better life, we strive for cheaper energy, better food and water, more effective health care, more leisure and recreation, we alter the planet in ways not always intended. So…we have all been gardeners whether conscious or not. Now that we are conscious we can garden, promote policies and practices that tend our planet in ways that will enable future generations to live on it as well as we have been able. Or, better yet, to live on a planet which is better than we have. I'd like to think that is possible, being an optimist. However, as we read about the ways we are exploiting our earth garden without regard to the consequences it makes me wonder.

A small way to tend the planet will take place on April 12^th Ralph C. Starkey Community Action Day, a day for volunteering to help our community. One of the activities will be held at Mary Virginia Crites Hanna Park at Rte. 188 and Pontius Road. People from the ODNR Division of Forestry will teach how to identify invasive plant species growing in the woods. The volunteers will work to remove as many of them as we can. Come join students from Ohio Christian University, local high schools and others. Bring loppers if you have them.

Things to do in the garden:

If you go to www.NCDC.noaa.gov/oa/mpp/freezedata.html and scroll down to Free data R then look for Ohio you will see that our frost zones have changed. For Circleville the new average date of the last frost is April 23rd! This means that there is a 50 per cent chance that a temperature as cold or colder than 32 degrees will occur later than that date.

Brunnera "Jack Frost" is the 2012 Plant of the year chosen by the Perennial Plant Association. Denise Ellsworth of OSU Extension warned our last Master Gardener training class to not plant brunnera with hostas. Harmful nematodes in brunnera will infect hostas and ruin the appearance of the foiliage. It is otherwise a good shade plant but not with hostas.

Helpline. Pickaway County Master Gardener Volunteers will be available to answer your questions about gardening. Call the OSU Extension office at 474-7534. Your question will be taken and then a Master Gardener Volunteer will get back to you with an answer. You can also pose a question to our web presence PCMGVhotline@yahoo.com.

If you are a serious gardener or just want to learn more, make a habit of weekly checking the Buckeye Yard and Garden Line at BYGL@osu.edu. Local state experts discuss gardening issues, problems that people across the state are having and offer some good tips.

Time spent on your lawn now will benefit it the rest of the year. Fertilize lightly. Now is the time to re-seed once night time temps consistently reach 50 degrees. This is also the time to aerate lawns.

Unless you are prepared to cover plants in case of frost, don’t put out those tender plants such as tomatoes and peppers until the end of the month. Spring flowering bulbs should be fertilized after they bloom. Remember to leave the leaves of bulbs until they yellow. Brown is better. Also prune spring blooming shrubs after they bloom.

Pull those bag worms, or better, cut them off. Do it now before the worms hatch out (shortly after the Snowmound spirea blooms). Dispose of the bags in the trash or bury them. One bag left equals a hundred plus new bags that won’t show themselves until this fall. It is almost impossible to see them, unless they denude your evergreens, while they and everything else is green.

Tend our planet tenderly.