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Having your own garden means one can be as creative as possible and stimulate riotous growth and varieties or be as bland as a mallard duck and watch the grass grow. Not only that, but one can hide a “Victory Garden” amidst the blooms of many flowers. Every year, my gardening challenge lies in fooling my wife (harder every year) into thinking that I have found new varieties of plants that have colourful flowers (her requirement) while surreptitiously hiding the plants I want that we can eat.
This year, the front garden features some fine-looking, tall plants which, when she asked what they were, I without a lie responded, “Oh, they are from the Allium family just like those tall, blue Alliums in the other garden." Satisfied with that answer, I was left to tend the garlic plants. I could have, of course, told her that they were called “the stinking rose”, but that might have had her Google that odd-sounding name.
In 1977, I had a chance to wander for a few days in the Golden Triangle where a rich crop of poppies, real opium poppies, grew. Ever since, I have been fascinated by that plant for its flowery beauty, for the fantastic benefits it can bring, and for the devastating harm it can cause when used wrongly, or for the wrong reasons.
This year, the decorative poppy is an integral part of the contrast created between some wheat plants and their bright, red colours. It also has done a splendid job hiding the cabbages and the Brussels sprouts.
The wheat, which currently is ripening, brings the understanding of the tragedy in Ukraine right to our front door. The Ukrainians are unable to ship their wheat from last year’s harvest to its main harbour in Odessa since that is blocked by the Russian navy. And this year’s ripening harvest which is almost ready cannot be collected in many places due to the mines that have been left in the fields as well as the combines that have been destroyed or stolen.
We humans can be such short-sighted and greedy animals. We could feed all people if we just learned not to covet our neighbour’s possessions, learned to cooperate in getting our farm products to market and use fewer grains for feeding animals.
Whatever we can do to help distribute what the soils produce, the faster we will have a more equitable world. Something worth striving for.
Have a great growing season.
Albert Wierenga, Bradford
