Beautify America: Eat your vegetables!
Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's ambitious plans for vegetable gardens outside City Hall, outlined in my story in The Sun today, made me think that perhaps we should be planting edible landscapes around all our public buildings: libraries, schools, courthouses and firehouses - for the benefit of the poor or for those who work and learn in those buildings.
And it is evidence that the pendulum has swung from the 1960s, when Lady Bird Johnson inspired the nation to plant wildflowers along highways and on other public land. Beautification was the watchword then. Food safety and healthy eating are the anthems now.
Flowers vs. vegetables. It is an old rivalry. Especially since the ancients found so many uses - medicinal and food - for flowers.
I like what Roger Doiron said in today's news story. The edible landscape advocate said that these kinds of projects can make cities rethink their ability to feed themselves, that urban areas are not condemned to poor nutrition and hunger just because the earth is paved over there.
I wonder, too, if this sudden explosion in interest in vegetable gardening will make flower gardeners like me feel guilty. Like we aren't contributing to the common good with our hydrangeas and our coneflowers. Like we are wasting our land and the sun and the rain that feed it.
And I wonder how the nation might have reacted if Lady Bird Johnson had urged us to plant corn or soybeans along the highways and in the median strips, instead of waves of colorful wildflowers.
Photo courtesy of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Categories: Baltimore's City Hall Garden
Comments
I could not be more excited about giving people the idea to turn their lawns into vegetable and flower gardens. It's great to mix them together. Marigolds are known to keep away pests that invade vegetables. Planting a meadow in your yard instead of grass has so many economical, financial, environmental, and time benefits.
Posted by: notablem | April 2, 2009 8:23 AM
I don't know about hydrangeas, but coneflowers are very important to small birds who, in turn, are important to the environment. While I am planting more veggies and fewer annual flowers this year, I will still find room for the marigolds (because I like them) as well as the zinnias (and basil) that butterflies love.
I'm certainly NOT removing the Butterfly Bush that I love or the Tiger Lilies (which my mother loved)
Posted by: Eve | April 2, 2009 12:10 PM
I want to say this about Lady Bird: I remember highway and interstate roadsides before she started her beautification campaign. They were ugly, ugly, ugly. I seriously doubt that the centers of interstates will be planted in vegetables, and judging by just the way that those on I95 North are not maintained, veggies might be planted but it'll just be a wasted effort.
I don't know how many years now, during late Spring, when those wildflowers in the center of I95, in the Harford/Cecil County areas have been coming full bloom, that a State mower has been out, cutting them down.
Posted by: Eve | April 2, 2009 12:18 PM
I'm with Eve--we can have both. Last year we had a big surprise in a new garden bed we created where there used to be driveway. We put lots and lots of compost in the soil as we were preparing the bed, and as a result we had lots of cherry tomatoes and tiny yellow plum tomatoes volunteer among the flowers. It wasn't planned, but it worked out well, especially as this bed is just steps from the kitchen door.
Funny you should mention. I get "volunteer" tomato plants from my compost, too!--Susan
Posted by: Dahlink | April 4, 2009 11:01 AM