The veggies in your garden could have lead in them (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
More Americans have started
planting their own gardens in recent
years. But it turns out a lot of
urban gardens are contaminated with
lead. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
More Americans have started
planting their own gardens in recent
years. But it turns out a lot of
urban gardens are contaminated with
lead. Julie Grant reports:
Last year 22% of Americans planted a garden.
Wendy Heiger-Bernays is professor of environmental health
at Boston University.
She says if you have an urban garden, she would expect to find heavy metals, especially lead, in the soil. It comes from old garbage, dripping oil, and peeling paint.
“Older homes have been demonstrated to leach lead from the home through the drip line and into the soil.”
Even small amounts of lead in the blood can cause learning disabilities in children.
Heiger-Bernays says you don’t have to throw away this year’s veggies. Just wash them well. And peel root vegetables.
And to get ready for next year, Heiger-Bernays says have your
soil tested. If there’s lead, add a foot of clean compost to the top of the garden bed. Next Spring plant only in that top layer.
Aileen Eilert and her plastic wagon loaded with
tomato and pepper starter plants, headed for the subdivision one block over to campaign (Photo by Ashley Gross)
Many environmentalists knock the suburbs. They don’t like how
dependent suburbs are on cars. They don’t like the sprawl, the large
houses and huge lawns. They think it’s a waste of land. Ashley Gross
reports… one woman is on a campaign to see some of those expansive
lawns turned into something a little more productive:
Transcript
Many environmentalists knock the suburbs. They don’t like how
dependent suburbs are on cars. They don’t like the sprawl, the large
houses and huge lawns. They think it’s a waste of land. Ashley Gross
reports… one woman is on a campaign to see some of those expansive
lawns turned into something a little more productive:
(sound of movie music)
Ever since soldiers returned from World War II, the suburbs have been portrayed as
the family-friendly ‘good life.’
“And so they joined the stream of family life in the suburbs. Soon to become part of
its familiar sights. Soon to absorb its familiar sounds.”
One of the most constant of those familiar sounds is a lawnmower.
(sound of lawnmower)
That noise just grates on Aileen Eilert’s nerves. Her goal is to live a more
environmentally-friendly life in the suburbs.
(sound of opening door and walking outside)
She does have a lawn. But she and her husband are converting much of it to
vegetable garden plots.
“So I have some snow peas growing here and here’s you know four tomato plants
and Bruce planted some peppers all the way down here.”
Eilert says gardening means she drives less often to the grocery store – and she’s
not buying produce shipped in from a different continent.
That’s important to her. Eilert says she decided to use less oil after her nephew was
killed in Iraq in 2005.
“You know, we’re fighting over there and it was about oil, and so I just thought I’ve
got to do something. I mean, it’s too late for me to do anything about my nephew,
and he was such a good kid. I’d like it to be where people – oh we don’t need to buy
oil from countries that may not be friendly to us or may not be stable.”
Eilert is not alone. People in the suburbs are beginning to think about their lifestyles
in a different way.
Evan McKenzie is a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago He researches the
politics of suburbia.
“The stuff that was planned and put in place in the 60s and 70s and even the 80s, I
think in some cases is giving way to new ideas. I mean they’re selling and giving
away rain barrels in the suburbs so people collect rainwater to water their plants
with. I never heard of that before.”
Not everyone is onboard with the environmental movement in the suburbs yet. Last
year Americans spent almost 11 billion dollars on do-it-yourself lawn care just to
keep the grass green.
Aileen Eilert wants to change that. She calls her new campaign “Grow Food, Not
Lawns.”
Her approach is one-on-one. Today she’s pulling a plastic wagon loaded with
tomato and pepper starter plants. She’s headed for the subdivision one block over.
(sound of wagon)
Eilert approaches Tim Lakis as he mows his lawn. He gives him a pepper plant.
Then comes the pitch.
Eilert: “Lawns actually use a lot of chemicals if you put chemicals on your lawn and
that gets into the water system.”
Lakis: “Okay.”
Eilert: “And then also your lawn mower has way more emissions than a car would,
not that I’m saying that…”
Lakis: “Okay, I’ll look it over.”
Aside from some strange looks, that went pretty well.
But Eilert learns pretty quickly there’s way more gardening going on here in this
neighborhood she thought. She’d pegged it as a lawn-addicted wasteland. But this
subdivision’s residents are kinda green.
Eilert: “I assume you use a gas mower?”
Man: “No. Electric.”
Eilert: “Do you? Oh you are just the perfect person to talk to today.”
Woman: “I mean, every year I grow my tomatoes and peppers and zucchinis.”
Second Man: “Every year I try to get rid of more grass and put in more plants.”
Eilert even gets a recipe for cooking dandelions. She leaves the subdivision
encouraged.
“People were concerned and people did think it was a good idea to have gardens
and they’d be willing to make a little more of a sacrifice to make the earth a little bit
better.”
She’ll be visiting more subdivisions soon, trying to get more people to turn those
suburban lawns into gardens. And maybe get them thinking, just a little about other
things they could do.
Two major manufacturers of fertilizer are cutting the amount of phosphorus in their products by half. Fred Kight reports the move should help reduce water pollution:
Transcript
Two major manufacturers of fertilizer are cutting the amount of phosphorus in their products by half. Fred Kight reports the move should help reduce water pollution:
Phosphorus is a major source of water pollution in many parts of the country. It can create algae blooms. When these blooms die off they rob the water of oxygen, often killing underwater plants and animals.
Scotts Miracle Gro is one of the companies cutting back on phosphorus. Rich Martinez is the chief environmental officer for Scotts. He says the problem occurs when the product doesn’t go where it’s intended:
“We did it as our part of contribution to a reduction in phosphorus losses – material moving off target that might end up in the water.”
Officials from Lebanon Seaboard say they’ll also reduce the amount of phosphorus in their fertilizers. Martinez says gardeners will probably see the new, lower phosphorus products on shelves by next spring.
Many gardeners feel that there's nothing as satisfying as growing and eating your own vegetables. (Photo by Daniel Wildman)
Not as many people are planting vegetable gardens these days… but the few who do are really passionate about it. And it’s not just because they swear their own vegetables taste better than anything you can get at a store. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams explores the obsessions of vegetable gardeners:
Transcript
Not as many people are planting vegetable gardens these days… but the few who do
are really passionate about it, and it’s not just because they swear their own
vegetables taste better than anything you can get at a store. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams explores the obsessions of vegetable
gardeners:
In Connie Bank’s former life, she recruited attorneys and engineers. She’d be
on the phone until ten every night. She’d spend entire weekends with clients.
She calls herself a true Type A – working at full speed, making a lot of money,
until she just had enough of it all.
Now vegetable gardening is her whole life.
“You’re controlling a tiny little nourishing world of your own, where the rest
of our world is sort of crazy, politics are crazy, the world is going nuts… it’s
America, it’s fast fast fast fast fast. This vegetable gardening thing is a way to take a
deep breath, slow yourself down, and just watch the garden grow.”
But Bank admits she’s still intense. She throws herself into gardening. She
says if the little plastic labels say to plant things twelve inches apart, she gets
impatient and packs them in six inches apart.
People like Connie Bank are sort of rare. A survey by the National Gardening
Association found that not a lot of people are into vegetable gardening these
days. Compared to five years ago, seven million fewer households are growing
vegetables. You have to weed and water every day and fend off the squirrels.
Most Americans would rather plant flowers or just not bother with any of it.
So these days, instead of recruiting professionals, Connie Bank’s trying to
recruit as many new gardeners as she can. She teaches classes to people on
their lunch breaks. Today, she’s going after daycare kids.
(Sound of watering)
BANK: “Who here likes vegetables? What kind do you like?”
KIDS: “Watermelon! Oranges! Strawberries!”
BANK: “Okay, that’s good you guys, except those are fruits.”
KIDS: “Corn on the cob is good!”
A lot of serious vegetable gardeners got their first taste of it as kids.
(Sound of trowel digging)
Earl Shaffer farmed as a kid in Indiana, and when he left at 17 he swore he’d
never grow anything again. But Earl says twenty years later, his wife Marie
tempted him back into the garden. Today, they’re tending to their lettuce,
tomatoes and zucchini. He says their house is too big for just the two of them
now, but he can’t move and leave his garden behind.
“As you get older, I think some of the things that were a part of your youth
kind of return in importance in some way. I was very fond of my grandparents,
especially my grandmother, and gardening was part of her life, I think that also made it
important to me to return to it.”
Shaffer says farming did give him a feel for growing things, but like everyone
else, he still has to read the plant labels. He says we’re losing the
knowledge of how to live off the land.
For gardeners, growing even just a couple tomato plants can feel like
reconnecting to our farming roots. Ashley Miller curated an exhibit on
vegetable garden history at Cornell University. She says the motives for these
gardens have changed a lot over the last three centuries. Sometimes people have
gardened to make money, sometimes they’ve grown food to support a war effort,
and sometimes people have just done it as a challenging hobby, but there’s one
major thread.
“Growing vegetables is as close as we can get to a seasonal ritual.
There is something primal about putting a seed in the soil and tending it, and
harvesting it and eating it.”
A lot of gardeners agree that growing vegetables is a sensual experience. They
talk about the way the scent of tomato plants fills the whole yard, or the
blue-green color of baby broccoli. Gardener Lee Criss says she can’t wait to
get into her yard in the spring and get her bare hands in the dirt.
“I don’t garden with gloves because I need to feel what the soil feels like, the
texture. You use senses in gardening that you don’t in most everything else
that you do. You feel things, you smell. It’s a different way of sensing the
world around you, I think.”
It’s hard to walk away from these people’s backyards and shake off their
enthusiasm. Every single gardener I talked to told me to call them when I
started my own garden. And if they think you’re considering gardening at all,
watch out: they’ll fill your head with visions of their juiciest cherry
tomatoes, they’ll try to fill your car with seedlings, anything to get you
hooked.
Largeflower bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora) is one of the wildflowers declining at many of the sites studied by University of Wisconsin researchers. (Photo courtesy of Dave Rogers, UW Herbarium)
Don Reiter manages wildlife at the Menominee Tribal Forest in northeastern Wisconsin. The forest retains a healthy diversity of plant life, and has a low deer population. (MPR photo/Stephanie Hemphill)
University of Wisconsin researcher Tom Rooney says forest and wildlife managers should try to maintain a diversity of forest types, and not favor deer or any other particular species. (Photo courtesy of Tom Rooney)
Most of us think of the white-tailed deer as a graceful and cherished part of the natural scene. But it turns out when there are too many deer, it’s bad for some of the plants in the forest. New research suggests deer may be a prime culprit in a worrisome loss of rare plants in the woods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
Most of us think of the white-tailed deer as a graceful and cherished
part of the natural scene. But it turns out when there are too many
deer, it’s bad for some of the plants in the forest. New research
suggests deer may be a prime culprit in a worrisome loss of rare
plants in the woods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie
Hemphill reports:
Gardeners in many suburbs and rural areas know deer are good at
mowing down hosta, tulips and other favorite plants. In the woods,
deer munch on the small plants that live on the forest floor… plants
such as orchids, lilies, and other wildflowers.
Fifty years ago, researchers at the University of Wisconsin surveyed
hundreds of acres in the state, and made careful records of the plants
on those sites. In those days, the deer population was a lot lower
than it is now. In the last couple of years, two biologists went back to
many of those same sites and counted the plants living there now.
Tom Rooney says at most sites they found fewer different kinds of
plants.
“It tends to be the same species occurring over and again on the site.
You’re losing the rare species and picking up more and more
common species.”
He says they tried to link the decline in rare species to the fact that
the forest is getting older. But they found no evidence for that.
Instead, lead researcher Don Waller says the evidence points to
deer, which have increased dramatically over the last fifty years.
“The worst changes we’ve seen, ironically were in a couple of state
parks and a protected natural area, that showed losses of half or
more of species in 50 years. However, in these sites there was no
deer hunting, implying high densities of deer may be causing a lot of
the effects we see in the woods.”
Plants that rely on insects for pollination declined more than other
types of plants. Waller thinks it might be because the insect-
pollinated plants have showy flowers, which could catch the eye of a
wandering deer. As the flowering plants decline, the insects and
birds that rely on them for food could decline as well – bees, moths,
butterflies, and hummingbirds.
Waller says it’s worrisome because scientists don’t know how
particular insects and plants work together to support each other.
“As we’re losing parts of the ecosystem, we’re really not sure what
their full function is, they might play some crucial role we’re not aware
of and only too late might we become aware of the fact that this loss
led to an unraveling or threats to other species.”
Waller says the only places they studied that still have a healthy
diversity of plants are on Indian reservations. The Menominee Tribal
Forest in northeastern Wisconsin is pretty much like it used to be fifty
years ago.
(forest sounds under)
In this forest, there are only about ten deer per square mile. That’s
about as low as the deer population gets in Wisconsin. It’s not that
the tribe is hunting more deer; it’s the way the forest is grown.
Deer find lots to eat in young aspen woods; there’s less for them to
eat where pines and oaks and maples grow. Don Reiter is the wildlife
manager here. He says in the 360 square miles of the Menominee
forest, there’s really four different types of woods.
“We have pulpwood, we have northern hardwoods, white pine, red
pine, and again, the forest ecosystem as a whole, there’s plenty of
food out there for the deer.”
And because there aren’t too many deer, young pines and hemlocks
– and orchids and lilies – have a chance to grow.
In the upper Great Lakes states, wildlife officials have been trying to
thin the deer herd for several years. That’s because state officials
have been aware deer were causing problems by eating too many
plants. The recent study provides dramatic evidence.
In Minnesota, for instance, hunters are shooting four times the
number of deer they shot fifty years ago.
Steve Merchant is forest wildlife program consultant for the
Minnesota DNR. Merchant says the agency has liberalized its rules,
to encourage hunters to kill even more deer. But the number of
hunters hasn’t gone up in recent years. And lots of private
landowners post no-hunting signs.
“We need to have some help from people, people still need to get out
and hunt deer, and landowners need to provide that access for
people to harvest deer.”
Merchant says Minnesota is gradually trying to restore pine forests,
which were cut down for lumber and replaced with fast-growing
aspen. More pine forests could cut down on the deer population…
“But as long as we still have the strong demand for the aspen
markets that we do, and we manage those aspen forests in a
productive manner for wood fiber, we’re going to create a lot of good
white-tailed deer habitat.”
Merchant says it would take decades to change the woods enough to
reduce the deer population. And in the meantime, we’re losing more
and more of the rare flowers.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
It’s the time of year when many gardens reach their peak – and even grow a little bit wild. That has made one essayist’s loss all the more painful. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly remembers a special garden:
Transcript
It’s the time of year when many gardens reach their peak –
and even grow a little bit wild. That has made one essayist’s loss all the more painful.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly remembers a special garden:
It looked like a crime scene.
Everything in the garden was gone.
The morning glories no longer crowded the sidewalk. Sunflowers were cut down in their
prime. There was a hole instead of the lilac. And one stubby trunk – where someone had
hacked off the sand cherry tree.
We started the garden just over a year ago. I found out I was pregnant and next thing I
know, my husband is incubating black-eyed susans on top of the refrigerator.
He seemed to have that nesting instinct. Suddenly, he was spending every weekend at
the nursery. He came home with tools and soil and plants and even trees.
The scraggly yard in front of our apartment building was being transformed.
For me, it was just what I needed – a patch of nature in the middle of the city.
This summer, the flowers came back. And we shared the garden with our 6 month old.
We were pointing out the buds on the trees, and the bees buzzing around.
We didn’t tend it much as we got ready to move. And it grew pretty wild.
There were flowers, but also grass and weeds.
Two weeks after we moved, all that life was torn up. Eleven different kinds of plants – all
carefully chosen and tended. We visited them every time we walked in or out of the
building.
I can’t imagine the person who could just rip flowers out of the ground. It was a tiny,
imperfect oasis. Now, it’s just dirt.
Ironically, the only thing that survived was a plum tree we planted on the city property –
between the sidewalk and the road. We thought city workers might pull it up – since it
wasn’t official. Instead, they plunked an iron gate around it and now, every week, a city
truck comes to water it.
We always laugh about how it survived its brush with the city officials.
Now, that tree has proved it really is a survivor – but all that perennial color that was
once a backdrop to it is gone. It was not just a bit of our past, but an investment in the
future as well.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
Several lakefront communities in the region have banned certain lawn fertilizers. Naturally, some lawn care companies are opposed to the ban, and now they’re cultivating a case for court. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shamane Mills reports:
Transcript
Several lakefront communities in the region have banned certain lawn fertilizers. Naturally, some
lawn care companies are opposed to the ban, and now they’re cultivating a case for court. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shamane Mills reports:
(sound of waves)
The 44 lakes in Dane County are one of Wisconsin’s biggest attractions. Also eye-catching are
lawns around the lakes, but officials say fertilizer from these lawns is running into lakes,
causing stinky, ugly, algae blooms. To improve water quality, Dane County has become the latest
community in the region to restrict phosphorus fertilizer.
The Wisconsin Landscape Federation hopes their lawsuit will stop next year’s ordinance from
taking effect. David Swingle is the Federation’s Executive Director. He contends the phosphorus
ban breaks state law and is based on faulty science.
“This was an effort to try to bring attention to area lakes, the problems they’re having from
so many other sources… and lawn fertilizer really was an easy to target to grandstand on.”
County officials are reviewing the ban to see if it will hold up in court…
or whether changes need to be made.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Shamane Mills.
Centaurea diffusa a.k.a. Spotted knapweed. Introduced in the late 1800's, knapweed can reduce diversity in the region's prairies. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Myriophyllum spicatum L. a.k.a. Eurasian watermilfoil. Introduced in the 1940's, dense mats of watermilfoil can rob water of oxygen, provide good habitat for mosquitoes, and impair swimming and boating. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Phragmites australis a.k.a. the common reed. A European strain was imported in the 1900's. It can quickly inhabit wet soils and create monocultures. Monocultures as big as 7000 acres have been documented. This plant also likes salty water, which is why it's often found in roadside ditches, where road salt accumulates. (Photo courtesy of )
Gardeners are being asked to be careful about what they plant. Invasive species that cause damage to natural areas often start as a pretty plant in someone’s yard. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Gardeners are being asked to be careful about what they plant. Invasive species that
cause damage to natural areas often start as a pretty plant in someone’s yard. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Botanists, plant nurseries and gardeners are all being asked to do a little more homework
before importing, selling, or planting new kinds of plants. Katherine Kennedy is with the
Center for Plant Conservation. She says some of the plants you mail order from the
nursery can end up being invasive kinds of plants that damage the local ecosystem…
“We are actually at a point where these invasions crowd out the native community, not
just a species or two, but the entire community. And the wildlife value falls and the
native plants are displaced. And, so, the destructive potential for a species that becomes
truly invasive is more immense than I think many people realize.”
Kennedy says you can’t count on the nursery to warn you when you order plants. She
says gardeners have to make sure the plants they’re ordering won’t hurt the surrounding
landscape.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Centaurea diffusa a.k.a. Spotted knapweed. Introduced in the late 1800's, knapweed can reduce diversity in the region's prairies. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Myriophyllum spicatum L. a.k.a. Eurasian watermilfoil. Introduced in the 1940's, dense mats of watermilfoil can rob water of oxygen, provide good habitat for mosquitoes, and impair swimming and boating. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Phragmites australis a.k.a. the common reed. A European strain was imported in the 1900's. It can quickly inhabit wet soils and create monocultures. Monocultures as big as 7000 acres have been documented. This plant also likes salty water, which is why it's often found in roadside ditches, where road salt accumulates. (Photo courtesy of Invasives.org )
Gardeners have been ordering new plants and digging in the dirt this spring, but if they’re not careful, they could be introducing plants that can cause havoc with forests, lakes, and other natural areas. Gardeners can’t count on their suppliers to warn them about plants that can damage the local ecosystems. In another report in the series, “Your Choice; Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Gardeners have been ordering new plants and digging in the dirt this spring, but, if
they’re not careful, they could be introducing plants that can cause havoc with forests,
lakes, and other natural areas. Gardeners can’t count on their suppliers to warn them
about plants that can damage the local ecosystems. In another report in the series “Your
Choice; Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Gardening, especially flower gardening, seems to get more popular all the time. Maybe
it’s because the baby-boomers have all reached that age where they’re beginning to
appreciate stopping for a moment to smell the roses.
That’s fine. In fact if gardeners plant the right kinds of plants… it can be great for
wildlife. There are all kinds of guides for backyard natural areas.
But… in some cases… gardeners can unleash plant pests on the environment.
Katherine Kennedy is with the Center for Plant Conservation. She says almost all of the
problem plants that damage the native ecosystems were planted with good intentions…
“I don’t believe that any invasive species has ever been introduced into the United States
on purpose by someone who willingly said, ‘Oh yeah, this is going to be a problem, but I
don’t care.’ They’ve almost all been inadvertent problems that were introduced by
someone who thought they were doing something good or who thought they were
bringing in something beautiful.”
English ivy, a decorative ground cover, is now killing forests in the Pacific Northwest…
kudzu is doing the same in the southeast… and in the Great Lakes region and the
Midwest… pretty flowering plants such as purple loosestrife and water plants such as
Eurasian watermilfoil are causing damage to wetlands, crowding out native plants and
disturbing the habitat that many wildlife species need to survive.
Bob Wilson works in the Michigan Senate Majority policy office. Like many other
states, Michigan is looking at legislation to ban certain problem plants. Wilson agrees
that these plant pests are generally not intentional… but they do show that people seem to
unaware of the problems that they’re causing…
“The two most common vectors for bringing in these kinds of plants are typically
landscapers, who bring it in as a way of decorating yards and lawns, and then aquarium
dumpers, people who inadvertently dump their aquarium, thinking that there’s no
consequence to that. Before you know it, something that was contained is now spread.”
But stopping the import of pest plants is a lot harder than just passing laws that ban them.
With mail order and Internet orders from large nurseries so common, the plants can get
shipped to a local nursery, landscaper or local gardener without the government ever
knowing about it.
Recently, botanists, garden clubs, and plant nursery industry groups put together some
codes of conducts. Called the St. Louis Protocol or the St. Louis Declaration… the
document set out voluntary guidelines for the industry and gardeners to follow to avoid
sending plants to areas where they can cause damage.
Sarah Reichard is a botanist with the University of Washington. She helped put the St.
Louis Protocol together. She says if a nursery signs on to the protocol, it will help stop
invasive plant species from being shipped to the wrong places….
“And it’s up to each of the nursery owners, particularly those who sell mail order or
Internet, to go and find out which species are banned in each state.” LG: And is that
happening? “Uh, I think most nursery people are pretty responsible and are trying to
do the best that they can. I’m sure that they’re very frustrated and understandably so
because the tools aren’t really out there for them and it is very difficult to find the
information. So, it’s a frustrating situation for them.”
But in preparing this report, we found that some of the biggest mail-order nurseries had
never heard of the St. Louis protocol. And many of the smaller nurseries don’t have the
staff or resources to check out the potential damage of newly imported plants… or even
to check out each state to make sure that banned plants aren’t being sent inadvertently.
Sarah Reichard says that means gardeners… you… need to do some homework before
ordering that pretty flowering vine. Is it banned in your state? Is it a nuisance that could
cause damage? Reichard says if enough gardeners care, they can make a difference…
“You know, gardeners have tremendous power. We, you know, the people that are
buying the plants at the nurseries – that’s what it’s all about. I mean, the nurseries are
there to provide a service to provide plants to those people and if those people have
certain tastes and demands such as not wanting to buy and plant invasive species, the
nurseries are going to respond to it. So, we’re all part of one team.”
Reichard and others concerned about the problem say although agencies are working on
it… the federal government has not yet done enough to effectively stop invasives from
being imported and shipped to the wrong areas. They say it’s up to the nurseries, the
botanists, and the gardeners to stop them. If not, we’ll all pay in tax money as
government agencies react to invasives with expensive eradication programs to try to get
rid of the plants invading parks, preserves, and other natural areas.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
President Bush has declared that the war in Iraq is over. But from the vantage point of his garden, recent National Guard retiree and Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Tom Springer, wonders what the lasting harvest of this conflict will be:
Transcript
President Bush has declared that the war in Iraq is over. But from the vantage point of his
garden, recent National Guard retiree and Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Tom
Springer, wonders what the lasting harvest of this conflict will be:
When I retired from the Army National Guard last December, I was looking forward to having
more free time. To commemorate my 22 years of service, I decided to plant my biggest vegetable
garden ever.
But even with more leisure time, I still hate to pull weeds. So I’ve covered my garden with
newspapers and straw. After the fall rains, I’ll till this organic matter back into the soil to prepare
for another growing season.
However, my usually peaceful garden conceals a litany of troubles. That’s because the
newspapers I’m using for a weed barrier read like an almanac of the recent war. Beneath my
cherry tomatoes, there’s breaking news of the early fights for Umm Qasr and Basra. Under the
green peppers, I can follow the 7th Marines on their river campaign up the Tigris and Euphrates.
Near my Spanish onions – and I’m sure the Spanish prime minister would approve – Saddam’s
statue falls to a cheering crowd in Baghdad.
Yet this guns-and-butter irony is a bit unsettling. Like many Americans, I am still ambivalent
about the war. Initially, I was against it. Then once it began, I believed the best course was to
win decisively. And as a veteran, I deeply respect the American men and women who so ably
proved themselves in Iraq.
Regardless of your viewpoint, on this much we can agree: Those who fought the war have seen
horrors and faced dangers that we civilians can scarcely imagine. Here, at home, the war may
already be old news. But for our returning veterans, its impact will last a lifetime.
I think about that as I read my garden newspapers. I think about how the sun and rain will
transform this violent news into food for the plants and nourishment for my body. And I think
about the life-changing nature of war – how it leaves some people broken, but gives others a new
sense of purpose and vocation.
Without question, our veterans deserve all the parades, yellow ribbons and happy homecomings
we can give them. But after the brass bands die down, I hope our newest heroes find something
equally valuable. I hope they find quiet, blissful places where they can heal their jangled nerves.
I hope they find a peaceful garden, where the fears and angers of war will melt away beneath the
cloudless skies of summer.
Tom Springer is a freelance writer from Three Rivers, Michigan.
The veggies in your garden could have lead in them (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
