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Feb 18, 201311:14 AMLV Home Garden
Bob Carey and all things home, all things garden, and some things between.
When’s the last time you rolled your own cigarette, made your own soap, knitted your own sweater or any number of things you know people do?
And why?
Because you just don’t have to. And really, with all the things we do have to do or would rather do, we won’t be gardening anytime soon.
This isn’t exactly the conclusion that the National Gardening Association (NGA) draws from the data but the bottom line is that the number of households that participate in flower gardening has dropped precipitously in the past six years. I’m going to be so bold to say that folks have really dialed back on veggie gardens and landscaping too.
Jelly Roll Georgie
Surveys reveal that gardeners and non-gardeners alike know and agree about the perceived benefits of having plants around the house.
Most folks with kids or saddled with work and careers desire a low maintenance landscape; big on enjoyment but light on other demands. Time, as I suggested, would seem to a big impediment to working in your garden.
But, while industry analysts are puzzling over all the reasons participation is in decline the reason everybody overlooks is the folks are too fat to garden; too fat to pull themselves out of the chair, too fat to be comfortable in the hot summer sun and likely too fat for the exertion that’s required to knock around in the garden.
For the first time in the history of the world, more people are dying of overconsumption than from lack of food and it’s killing gardening too.
The Biggest Loser
Technology and modern lifestyles have allowed and encouraged us to thumb out nose at Nature until Nature decides to give us a whooping. The issue of obesity is no less catastrophic than the worst weather or tsunami. It’s just a difference of effect/time.
Not too many generations ago folks practiced gardening because they intuitively knew that the soil and its products were part of their heritage and useful to be knowledgeable about.
Today, consumers only get close to agriculture at farm shows and fairs but have little interest in the details and even less knowledge. In forgetting our heritage we’ve placed ourselves in peril.
In Food Rules by Michael Pollan, there a little tricolon that is both compass and keel to reconnecting with our gardening heritage; “eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”
As simple and intuitive as this statement is, it is a challenge to change our relationship with nature and implicitly, our lifestyles. Gardening, the data shows, still has a toehold in our imaginations.
Time or not, money or not, it’s still a socially acceptable activity that can bring us benefits beyond those of better health. If we can’t remember how to feed ourselves; who’s the biggest loser?
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