The County Press

ED’S INSIGHT

Gardening involves growing romaine lettuce to feed son’s turtle

ED FITZGERALD

ED FITZGERALD

Did you buy any dirt today? You remember the old saying about the salesman who could sell ice cream to an Eskimo? How about the good people at Home Depot who can sell dirt to a terrestrial?

In the old days this newspaper would’ve transferred a fair amount of black ink onto your hands. Nowadays it’s not as bad. That’s good, because at this time of year we need to keep our fingers and thumbs green. How’s that for a segue?

The gardening season is under way. Most of you have already begun your warfare in the trenches of gardening. Maybe you’ve even donned a straw hat and knelt on an MSU or U-M foam rubber kneeling pad. No shame there, but guys: Don’t let your male friends see you gardening while making a fashion statement. Don’t let the color of your garden gloves match the color of your socks. I’m warning you.

Some of you may even be master gardeners. Maybe you belong to the Lapeer County Master Gardeners association. Hopefully you took part in that group’s fund-raising shrub sale, buying 4-inch potted shrubs at the low cost of $4. You can pick up your black chokeberries or your false cypresses (much nicer than the true cypresses) on June 1. The shrubs were grown by Melvyn Corner (I think that’s a person, not an intersection in Melvin.) June 1 is also the day the master gardeners will do some planting downtown Lapeer, according to the group’s Mary Paine. My late grandmother used to live on Pine Street across from the old Lapeer hospital. She had a couple of lovely gardens in her back yard, including one that centered ’round an old, stone horse tie-up. I bet it’s still there. Her rule of green thumb was to not put anything in the ground until after Memorial Day. Things have warmed up a degree or two since she uttered that adage 40 years ago. Nowadays it seems Mother’s Day is a safe time to start planting. The early morning frosts are usually gone by then. Last Sunday was on the chilly side, but I saw plenty of sons and daughters out there hanging hanging baskets for their mothers.

I’m not a particularly good gardener, which will surprise no one. I don’t fertilize my lawn, and I rarely fertilize my shrubs and flowers. This year I’m trying to grow romaine lettuce because it’s the food of choice for my son’s turtles. My excuse for not fertilizing is that I live only a couple of blocks from Lake St. Clair and I don’t want my fertilizer run-off to reach the lake. It has absolutely nothing to do with me being lazy. My yard is also full of dandelions, which I justify by feeding some to my son’s lizard. This is all painfully true.

I would gladly do more gardening, but my back yard is dominated by trees. So I mostly have dirt and, when it rains, mud — and lots and lots of stone pavers to walk on. Last season, I grew some peppers that turned out to be hot peppers. I didn’t know that until the raccoons picked them, then just let them sit uneaten on the ground. I also plant trumpet-shaped, high-nectar flowers with the express purpose of attracting hummingbirds. No luck. I haven’t had the pleasure of feeding breakfast to a hummingbird since I left Lapeer County and moved to Wayne County. When I lived at the corner of Myers and Imlay City roads, the hummingbirds would land on the feeders while I was in the process of filling them. The annual National Gardening Survey shows that younger households are getting their hands dirty at an alltime high. Industry analyst Ian Baldwin said, “18- to 34-yearolds now occupy 29% of all gardening households.

“It’s a strong sign that they are finally ‘in,’” Baldwin said on the GardenResearch.com website. The survey showed that one of the attractions is that young gardeners are choosing to grow cannabis. The survey revealed that 27% of the respondents said it should be legal to grow cannabis for personal use, and 15% of the households (19 million) said they would grow cannabis if it were legal in their state to do so.

Last year, American gardeners spent a record $47.8 billion on lawn and garden supplies. The average gardening household spent $503 — up nearly $100 over the previous year.

Yes, we are driving to the store and buying bags of dirt and we’re buying bags of manure. Take that, technology.