Has anything changed? One might wonder if a trip down highway 36 this spring, in the midst of a pandemic, would yield a garden or two? Inquiring minds…. This piece was written in May of 2014.
storms building in the north
I spent a couple of days in the heartland this week. I flew into the Indianapolis airport and took the two lane highway 36, from Indiana into the heart of Illinois. A drive, straight as an arrow, that takes you though some of the richest agricultural land in this country. Small towns were planted every five to ten miles, even an oddly placed suburb in what seemed the middle of nowhere, and vast oceans of farmland.
Having nothing better to do with my time, I counted vegetable gardens. I counted as I drove through towns on the highway. I counted as I passed subdivisions. I counted as I passed farms by the dozens. Finishing the trip two and half hours later with a grand total of zero vegetable plots spotted. My recent digs at neighbors for not planting gardens now seem misplaced, because well over half of the homes in our valley have some sort of vegetable garden. But zero?
Now we can assume I missed plenty. But I was diligent in looking and even a casual survey should have turned up the odd patch of tilled ground behind a house or two. But I also didn’t see any small orchards or vines. Most homes in our valley sport at least a pear tree or two in the front yard.
What could account for a food desert in this landscape? Was this the curse of rich land and commodity prices? Or was it that I was simply looking at 200 miles of an industrial park disguised as an agrarian landscape. A bit like those fake Hollywood towns of yore, looks the look at first glance but nothing supporting it.
It was odd to see old farmhouses with the corn and soybeans tilled and planted up to the driveways. The houses bobbing on the landscape like lost boats at sea. Gone were the outbuildings and barns of the past, now replaced with corrugated buildings housing supplies and gargantuan equipment. No room in this landscape for the personal or something as humble as a vegetable patch or fruit tree. No need for the homestead pig or grapevine, the message is clear, this is valuable land.
Yet what explained the absence in towns of vegetable gardens? As is my wont, I’m no doubt guilty of reading too much into this simple lack of observable gardens. But vegetable gardens, a few chickens and a fruit tree or two make a statement. And their absence in our rich heartland is a statement, something darker, a yielding of ones will or culture.
Perhaps it is better to farm or garden on land that requires a bit more struggle?
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Reading this weekend: Living in the Long Emergency (Kunstler). The just published update to his 2005 bestseller. A concise overview of “where we are”. Although, since the work was written just before the pandemic, one imagines the author wishes to have been able to add an addendum.
Perhaps this year is a bit different. I’ve seen a couple on-line seed providers suggesting they’ve been overrun with orders for seed this year. Folks staying home and planting gardens (or at least planning to). The road to hell is lined with good intentions. [Hell MI does have a road leading into it… I wonder what Google Maps shows along the path??]
It is hot and sunny in Central Ohio right now. Planting weather (after all the soaking we’ve witnessed).
In the last two weeks I’ve been approached by two colleagues seeking practical advice (redesigning the backyard/leasing a garden). Have never had that many people getting off their arses. And I’d not expected to get to see much of the 0.025% of people changing their ways every time a crisis hits. Maybe I’m an influencer.
Planting continues, slowly. Late late frosts followed by continuing extreme drought conditions.
Greeting, Michael, the Influencer! Congrats on your new found peasant fame.
Sorry for the late frosts. My figs which promised a bumper crop based on our mild winter got whopperjawed by our late frosts. sigh.
Just back from a virtual (or online) visit to Hell, Michigan… turns out I’ve been much closer to Hell than I’d like to admit. Have traveled from Chelsea to Stockbridge which it looks to me is within six miles of Hell at the closest point.
The current Google map of the area around Hell doesn’t appear to sport many gardens. Not knowing what a good intention looks like from the sky I’ve nothing to offer on that front either.
I stayed in a neighboring town to Hell, last winter. There was a light snow storm in the area. Well, I couldn’t pass that up. So, I drove over to Hell just to say I had seen it when it froze over. True story.
Cool.
🙂
When we venture off the mountain we live on we come down into the rolling hills of the Washington and Idaho Palouse. It’s an area famous for growing wheat. Mostly soft wheat for pasta. They also grow lentils, peas, canola, and grass seed. Some fields have been converted over to hay since the high prices for that started. Miles and miles of fields, you’re either in a brown ocean of dirt or a mono crop of green, depending on the season. When you drive the countryside there is nary a garden or chicken, let alone a steer or pig. I call these farms Dead Farms. The farmers would rather go to high school basketball games and Mexico in the winter, they have no intention of mending fences or feeding livestock. This area used to have plentiful orchards intertwined with the farms. They ripped them all out to farm grain right up to the pavement. The land is too valuable for fruit orchards (too much work), grain farming makes for lazy farmers in my opinion. I’m not even going to go into the chemical degradation those mono cropping farmers assault the land with in their efforts to wring out more bushels of grain from the depleted land.
Hmmm, maybe I need more caffeine…
And so many people seem to like hilly, denuded landscapes like the Palouse. The Kiwis and the Scottish are only very slowly waking up to the fact what a lack of deep-rooted things (plants, people) has done to their landscape.
Interesting observation, Teresa Sue. Fortunately you remember what it used to look like before the monocultures crept over the land. Hopefully, like Michael says, some people will wake up.
The extreme of that type of thinking is Copperhill, TN (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Basin_(Tennessee)). Reportedly when the state stepped in to reclaim the land some residents objected, having grown accustomed to completely bare and eroded lands.