Post 58: Nature Knows Best!

EVERYBODY NEEDS . . .

Everybody needs a garden
It should be the law!
Large or small, a patch of earth
Could teach us all of nature’s worth
No matter rich or poor

Everyone would know the pleasure
When you harvest what you sow
There’s no better satisfaction
Than this basic ancient action.
And, you comprehend a fraction
Of the need to plant and grow

 

I think there is much more to be said about lazy gardening (as forewarned in Post 56: Springing Forward) Now gardening days stretch into late late evening, we have more time to sit and observe; to watch and marvel at the proliferation of life in our garden; and we don’t have to do anything!

A dear friend (you know who you are Ann!) who has produced a cartoon calendar for many years, to raise money for a selected charity, has chosen, for her May offering, to highlight the human desire/ compulsion/ brainwashing of ‘tidying up’ in the garden.

A DAISY LAWN May 2020 

Some gardeners like an all green lawn
So neat and flat and closely shorn
But, what a stunning sight to see
Is a daisy lawn; where bird and bee
And myriad insects feed for free

We sit among the sea of white
Enjoying fading evening light
And, as the sun begins to sink
The petals close; the lawn’s flushed pink
A beautiful and wondrous sight
The magic of a Summer night

 

Now ‘No Mow May’ is upon us, the mowers among us (usually men) need to be restrained from the ingrained habit of producing that smooth green sward; which is only really a necessity for cricket, football pitches; and golf greens; (other sports probably applicable). Even my hubby, despite constant nagging by me, finds it hard not to ‘just’ mow a pathway through the growth; without ‘finishing’ the task by shearing off the verdant untidy edges; and, as Ann points out, it’s nice to have a bit of lawn to sit on. But that is ‘just a bit’; if we don’t prefer the alternative of garden chairs; plastic or otherwise.

Even I, despite my decreasing ability to manage gardening tasks, constantly feel the urge to ‘clear up’ those straggly bits. But I have learnt that this compulsion can be channeled by concentrating on pots! Those plants, trapped in containers, do ‘need’ extra tending; just so as they can struggle through nature’s alternative growth. And, I have observed that our relatively ‘untouched’ borders have a healthy population of ladybirds, woodlice and other garden inhabitants; busy hunting, scavenging and clearing up that garden waste; and, of course, the birds are always on the lookout for the scavengers!

I started this post, not only to highlight Ann’s observations of human intervention, but also to dispute the report, in the press last week, that pesticide and herbicide residues left in food, once cooked (boiling, frying, preserving etc.) have a minimal negative effect on human health; which seems to me to be a calculated diversion from another topical headline, that UPFs (Ultra Processed Food) are proven to be bad for you. These are the comestibles that have been subjected to nutrition removal via pesticides and herbicides, pulverized into useless calories, and presented in colourful tempting packaging; usually single use plastic.

And, are we not ignoring the glaring fact that the DAMAGE HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE, ie, these poisons have ALREADY killed living organisms, in our soil and in the air; organisms that are becoming more and more necessary for a healthy environment, better soil health, and proliferation of insects and those so called ‘pests’, before they ever get to us, via the food on our plates.

I don’t think that we can escape the fact that, globally, we are all participating (compulsorily) in a massive chemical experiment. Nature will, of course, win out eventually. Whether the human race will be there to recover from their mistakes, is a question I don’t have the answer to; but I still have hope!