Multitudes of Grasshoppers & Morality Questions
Here’s that spindly seedling again from the post on the Widger, which is shown in all its glory tucking a red cabbage into its next home. We addressed the plight of the stretched out little plant in the previous post Leggy Spindly Seedlings.
Now, lets explore what might happen to these guys that could distress them long before they enter the brine for sauerkraut, or are thrown in the steam heat before freezing. Oh, its horrible what I plan to do to these plants I really love! I can’t help but give thanks for the fact that I didn’t have children in this life. Imagine how I might treat a child I loved if this is what I plan to do to the plants I nurture even from seed. Its a horrible thought, worthy of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”. If you don’t know the essay, or have a strong sense of moral outrage, or a weak sense of humor, I don’t suggest you go there.
I find the awareness of love, nurturing and tenderness for these green beings and my hungry plans for them once they reach the fullness of their lives a bit duplicitous. However, I recall, at the end of the growing period, the plants and I have such a loving regard for each other, and the awareness that the purpose of the plant is to give its fruit (or vegetable), that at the time of harvest I feel only gratitude rather than guilt.
Also, I try to save seed, and in this way, contribute to the continuity of life of these generous and beautiful plant creatures.
We’ll see how these cabbages will do, even with their stretched out beginning. They have yet to withstand the onslaught of hungry catepillars, the ravages of intense sun, pounding of fierce rain and all the gentle blessings that Nature gives when she is nurturing to growth, not just to toughness. So I hope that they will make it to fertile ground and that the care given to them sustains them throughout their season.
I’ll give you a foretaste of one of the challenges to come: the bug situation.
It may be that last year was a plague year that no one else around here mentioned. I didn’t hear anyone else saying that there were multitudes of grasshoppers afflicting their gardens. It was the first time in many years that the yard which is now mine had not had a flock of chickens eating everything that moved. This means that everything that moved converged on the first plants I had out there - the cabbages and broccoli in 2008. This is how it looked:
Yikes!
And I still don’t have a flock of chickens to feast on these critters. I’d need to have more fencing first; know that I could grow feed for them; want to get out at the crack of dawn to care for them, and have every plant I care about behind fencing. In other words, I’m not ready for chickens. But will my garden thrive without them?
I’m hoping that last year was an aberration, and this year will not find waves of them fleeing as I walk across the yard or through the garden.
