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| The Big Green Weather Observations Book |
I admit
to having obsessive/compulsive tendencies in some areas of my life. At least
three weather observations a day (four is better) must be duly noted in the Big
Green Weather Book, for example. Towels must be folded in thirds, for another.
We flip or rotate the mattress the first weekend of every other month. The sink
must be empty by bedtime, the dish drainer before morning coffee. Tim regales
audiences at informal gatherings with stories about my list-making, which
extends to making lists of the various lists I have running at any given time.
Okay.
Maybe I suffer from more than mild OCD. Whatever gets you through the day,
right?
While grooming the nasturtium baskets this morning—which will soon be only nasturtium, since pickleworms have
discovered the cucumbers I’d interplanted with them—I realized I’d snipped off
some seed heads before they’d ripened. Oh,
bugger, I thought. Blew that seed-saving
opportunity. (My OCD manifests when it comes to saving seeds. Our
refrigerator’s vegetable crisper teems with them. The disorder does not extend to planting the saved seeds, however.) The
oversight inspired me to take a really close look at the flowers, though.
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| Monoecious nasturtium flowers |
Seems nasturtium (Tropaeolum spp.) are monoecious, a botanical term deriving
from the Greek for “one house”; it refers to both male and female flowers being
borne on the same plant. The female blooms evolve into seedcases while the males
just die. (Other species, like hollies, are dioecious—Greek for “two houses”—with male flowers on one plant and
female on another. Male hollies never produce babies/berries. Neither do females
if there is no male within cross-pollination distance. While we’re on the
subject, the quality of dioeciousness applies to pampas grass as well. If yours
never erupts into spectacular bloom, you’ve got yourself a boy plant.)
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| Gregor Mendel |
I find the secret lives of flora
endlessly fascinating, and as I pulled off dead leaves and (male) flowers, I
found myself thinking about Gregor Mendel, the Austrian Augustinian monk whose
obsession with peas in his monastery’s garden resulted in the science of
genetics.
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| George Washington Carver (photo taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston in 1906) |
Gardening obsessions are quite
common. Take George Washington Carver. He saw small farmers struggling to make
their livings growing cotton, which not only depletes the soil but doesn't fill the family's stomachs either. He promoted diversification into marketable crops
that also offer nutritional value, such as soybeans, sweet potatoes, and
peanuts. Over a long career at Tuskegee Institute, he wrote dozens of farm
bulletins containing some 105 recipes using peanuts. He also developed more than
300 products for farm and home use from the lowly goober, including cosmetics,
dyes, gasoline (biofuel!), nitroglycerin, paints and plastics. When it comes to
obsessive/compulsiveness, Carver makes me look like a rank amateur.
Other siren-like plants send
people into the clutches of a persistent notion that defies rationality. The
rosarians are one such group. Even the word “rosarian” conjures up religion. In
Otherwise Normal People: Inside the
Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening, Aurelia C. Scott captures the
insanity overtaking seekers of the title “Queen of Show” at the biannual
National Rose Show.
Orchid-fanciers
suffer from similar obsessive/compulsions, a condition the Victorians called “orchedelirium.”
So compelling is this particular form of plantmania, Spike Jonze adapted Susan
Orlean’s The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession –the story
of the discovery and break-up of a Florida orchid-smuggling ring—into the 2002
movie “Adaptation,” starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. Not bad for an
epiphyte. 
Growing edibles inspires others
to craziness, a sickness I can empathize with. If you struggle with your
vegetable plot; if your significant other occasionally remarks that you could
have purchased bushels of whatever
with the money, resources and time you lavish on your garden; if you wonder if
you’re all alone in this unequal struggle against nature, you must read The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune,
and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden by William
Alexander. You’ll feel better about yourself when you finish it.
Of course, Mr. Alexander’s $64
tomato pales in comparison to my own $200 potato patch. After three seasons of dismal
yields, this year’s test harvest looked promising. The 12 pounds of four
species of seed tubers I planted may actually produce at least that weight in
edible spuds, for a happy change. Tomorrow’s the day I’m hauling them in, so
fingers crossed, y’all. As a sort of voodoo insurance, I haven’t yet cleared out
the closet where I propose to store the bounty until the weather cools down.
Just in case.
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| Test harvest of 'Purple Majesty' weighed three whole pounds!! |
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| Test harvest of 'Red Caribe' weighed two-and-a-half pounds!! |
Whether for beauty, rareness,
usefulness, and/or nutritional value, the quest for that perfect plant is an
obsession that lurks in all dedicated gardeners, whether we express it to the
point of madness or not. A little bit of
OCD might be all that’s needed to push a weekend putterer into nutcase
territory. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Thanks for dropping by.
Kathy
