Master Gardener Class Begins

Is it possible to turn a Tumbledown Farmer into a Master Gardener? I guess we’ll find out.

Tumbledown paid his $95 and is taking his chances. This past Tuesday, he spent all day in class at Purdue Extension-Marion County learning all he could about “plant science” and “horticulture” and “entomology” and “insect pests” and “weeds.” We began class with a pretest, which Tumbledown almost certainly flunked. The day then followed with lecture, aided by PowerPoint outline, photos, and physical examples (field samples). So far the experience is both exhilarating and daunting. If you enjoyed High School biology and wanted to go deeper, and if you love gardening, this may be the place for you. Tumbledown will keep you posted about what he’s learning and how it is going. If there are veteran Master Gardeners out there who would like to share their advice and experiences with Tumbledown readers, just register with the blog (see the link on the side bar) and leave us a comment. Share a note of encouragement or a note of caution, whichever fits.

Wondering what the Master Gardener Program is all about? Check out the Purdue Extension-Marion County Master Gardener page. Have a gardening question? E-mail it for an answer to the Master Gardeners who are standing by at marionmg@purdue.edu. Or call 317-275-9292.

There is a moral dilemma for Tumbledown, of course, given his natural suspicion of government programs and industrial agriculture (pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and the like). It is clear from day one (and from the agreement potential Master Gardeners are required to sign in order to enroll) that the course will include information about the proper use of pesticides and fertilizers, and to provide that information at the conclusion of the course to those who ask questions about how to garden.

Tumbledown has decided that he will take the Master Gardener course with his eyes wide open, hoping to discern where the information provided by the Extension Service educator can be used within the context of traditional (late 19th, early 20th century), diversified, sustainable small farms and gardens. He’ll take notes and report about those aspects of the course that tend to support and exhibit indebtedness to industrial agriculture and those that tend to support local, small farms.

Already it is possible to see some of the biases that so annoy Gene Logsdon and Wendell Berry. For example, the whole program falls under the rubric “Consumer Horticulture” (the only recognized alternative being “Commercial Agriculture”). Commercial ag produces; consumer ag consumes. Thus the economic engine revs. Still, the overall impression after the first day is of an Extension program with significant balance, able to hear and respond to the criticisms that have been leveled at it for some time. Not always altogether fair in its assessment of some “traditional wisdom,” but less strident in its opposition, and more willing to consider “organic” and biological controls than Tumbledown thought the purveyors of un-sustainable industrial agriculture might be.

Tumbledown will be listening to hear whether the things being taught are able to be fit into an emphasis on “genetic diversity, local adaptation, and conservation of energy.” (Berry, The Way of Ignorance) Tumbledown will be listening, in short, to improve his bottom line (the improvement of his garden.

Tumbledown Farm

Human Limits and Unlimited Hubris

Wendell Berry. The Way of Ignorance: And Other Essays, Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005. (contributions by Daniel Kemmis and Courtney White)




Collections of essays are never as tightly constructed or coherent as a reader might wish, but this is one of those rare cases--and rare authors--for which one can truly say it does not matter. The subject of human limits--and our need to recognize and honor those limits--is of such importance and so permeates every essay in the book that the reader forgives what disjunctions do occur between individual essays. There is not a linear progression from beginning to end, but in the end who cares. The subject has been addressed thoughtfully from many directions.

Part I is the least satisfying section of the book. It is also the most political (in the stupid sense of that word), but short enough to be tolerable. Berry has written more and better about "Contempt for Small Places" and "Rugged Individualism." Tumbledown was gratified to see Berry endorse the growth of farmers markets, community supported agriculture (CSAs), sustainable agriculture, Slow Food (using all of the "movement" monikers) and the like as an alternative to "competing on the global market" and as an indicator that indeed "We Have Begun." The pace picks up toward the end of this section with one good (Compromise, Hell!) and one better ("Charlie Fisher") essay. The latter, the story of a man logging and using horses to do it, is vintage Berry.

Part II is the reason to buy the book, 98 work-horse pages in 8 little essays. The first, "Imagination in Place," tells us that Berry is a farmer-writer and a writer-farmer, and that both vocations are shaped by (and shape) the land on which he lives. A wondrously brief bibliography (library) illustrates the shape of Berry's "philosophy" of farming:

F. H. King, Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan

Sir Albert Howard, An Agricultural Testament (Special Rodale Press Edition)

Sir Albert Howard, The Soil And Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture (Culture of the Land: A Series in the New Agrarianism)

J. Russel Smith, Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture (Conservation Classics)

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

If these have influenced Berry's thoughts, you can bet they'll be on Tumbledown's shelf and on his nightstand soon. How better to understand Berry's influence on my own thoughts than to read his sources (in the sense of wells and springs) independently.

The title essay, "The Way of Ignorance," first written as a conference paper for the Land Institute, Marfield Green, Kansas, is about "our old friend hubris, ungodly ignorance disguised as godly arrogance. Ignorance plus arrogance plus greed sponsors 'better living with chemistry,' and produces the ozone hole and the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico." The thesis is that there is a congenital human ignorance and a a willful ignorance of our own ignorance (theologians would speak of original sin) that makes one shudder at the thought that our response to global warming and exhaustion of fossil fuels will be to build many, many more nuclear reactors. Having seen what gets "skipped" or "done poorly" at too many construction sites, Tumbledown has to agree that nuclear physics "'applied' by ignorant arrogance resembles much too closely an automobile being driven by a six-year-old boy or a loaded pistol in the hands of a monkey." All of that is on the first page of this dynamite essay that rings the changes on what we don't (and can't) know and why we should respect our limits. "The Purpose of a Coherent Community" is mostly a lament that we no longer have one. "Quantity vs. Form" is another demonstration that we transgress our limits at our peril--at the peril of appropriate human scale and a propriety of technological application. Medicine should be practiced by human standards (not by the standards of what machines can do). The same goes for agriculture. Limitless production is not a good thing. Limits provide the "formal completeness, grace, and beauty" of a part related to the whole. "Renewing Husbandry" is again a caution against boasting of "technological feats that will 'feed the world.'" Husbandry, according to Berry is the more comprehensive term; science the narrower, more specialized term. (Husbandry includes science.) Yet more is claimed for the much narrower science than the more comprehensive husbandry would ever dare claim. "The Burden of the Gospels" was of special interest to Tumbledown (a professional interest). It is heartening to see such straightforward readings of Scripture--especially the rejection of interpretations that come "perilously close to 'He didn't really mean it'" (Luke 14:26).

Part III consists of a letter by Berry to Daniel Kemmis (former Minority Leader and Speaker of the House in Montana, and mayor of Missoula), a reply from Kemmis to Berry. Both essays are worth reading if readers already care about the Democratic Party. If not, don't bother. The best essay of this final section is Courtney White's "The Working Wilderness: A Call for a Land Health Movement." Courtney is not predictably on any side except the side that offends both ranchers and environmentalists (and therefore probably best protects the land).

All in all, an awesome read. A book to read a second time (or at least major sections of it). A book to provoke thought. (And shouldn't every book be that?)

100 Mile Diet: Food for Thought

Tumbledown's summer reading list had a lot to do with eating. It began with Barbara Kingsolver's recounting of her family's year of eating locally (with help in the telling from her husband Steven L. Hopp and daughter Camille Kingsolver). The strength and also the weakness of the book was ease of reading. The access point for entry was the lowest common denominator of mass market appeal. But that also makes for good summer beach reading. (Not that Tumbledown went to the beach this summer, and had he gone, this book would have compounded his sense of guilt for having used the fuel and for having eaten his share of industrial fast food along the way.)

Kingsolver recounts what is becoming a popular and oft repeated experiment in eating (living, really), in which a person or couple or family decides to feed themselves food "from so close to home, we'd know the person who grew it." (p. 10) The recipes for that year-long experiment, many of which can be had for free at the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle web site, are worth the price of the book. (Also available at that site is an index of non-Kingsolver web sites and other online resources, many of which are also listed in the various chapters of the book.) Tumbledown's family especially appreciates the new "Friday night pizza" ritual that grew out of the chapter entitled "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast." We are now imitating Kingsolver's example--and the fun of gathering the family around the table to put together our two 12" masterpieces of gustatory delight has become a weekly event likely to be repeated every week until the children leave the nest. The ingredients for our pizza toppings come fresh from the garden on the day we eat them, washed and chopped minutes before they hit the crust. The children see the journey from garden to mouth and participate fully along the way. Thanks to Kingsolver for the recipe and the suggestion that "family night" include food preparation and conversation about the sources of what we put in our mouths.

The final criticism, if indeed that is what it is, would be that sometimes the book comes across as "preachy." But that too is OK in a sermon, even one about the evils of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs, where animals are confined in feedlots), the fuel cost of transporting food across the nation and across the world, and the broken economics of farming.



If Kingsolver's book is preachy, Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, is pedantic ("teachy" in the monotone professorial sense) and inflammatory (referring in part to his attention-grabbing accusation that McDonald's McNuggets have as an ingredient tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), "a form of butane (i.e., lighter fluid)" (p. 187). Subtitled " A Natural History of Four Meals," the book is a Jeremiad (OK, he does sermonize) against monocrop corn and soybeans and (you guessed it) CAFOs. The four meals are 1) Industrial Food, 2) Pastoral Food: Whole Foods / Big Organic, 3) Pastoral Food: Small Organic, diversified and local, 4) Personal: Hunter / Gatherer. Many of the same concerns that animate Kingsolver's experiment also inform Pollan's work, which was published a year before Kingsolver's. And Pollan, for all his story-telling ability, also likes to pack the chapters with data and citations. Pollan's telling of the history of the organic movement and description of the differences between the new "industrial organic" and the more sustainable organic of smaller farms is a tribute to good research and writing. And the basic premise, the "omnivore's dilemma" about what to eat (because an omnivore cannot eat just the leaves of a eucalyptus) is robust enough to bear the explanatory weight of the book. Overall, very well done, despite some well-publicized controversy over some of the data. (But in a book that seeks to influence as well as inform, the overreaching of a datum or two is to be expected.)



Another book that partakes of what Pollan calls an "edible conceit" (an artificial set of rules for eating--a hyper-cultivation of a convention--for the sake of the art, in this case a book, and that moves well beyond what the author would naturally do), is the book Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally. It too tells the story of a year-long experiment in eating by one couple. Smith and MacKinnon's one "ironclad" rule was that "every product we bought had to come from within 100 miles." The point of the conceit, then, was "to explore, and explore deeply, the idea of local eating." (pp. 10-11) Unlike Kingsolver's and Pollan's books, which are experiments that feature the culture and foods of the Midwest and Southeast, Smith and MacKinnon's "local"-ity is foreign to Tumbledown. They live on the West Coast, the Pacific coast, west of the Cascades, in a land of mild winters and lots of rain. For that reason, the book was of interest conceptually, but hardly as informative for purposes of imitation. Still, it was an inspiration to read the story of this "conceit" and contemplate such a journey for ourselves. Just where would a family in Indianapolis draw the line on buying local food? In the flat Midwest corn belt, is local the Ohio border? (100 miles) Chicago? (200 miles) or Des Moines? (500 miles) ...or could it be that the circle around Indianapolis could be drawn more closely?

Why bother? That's the question asked once again toward the end of Plenty. The answer, in part, is the same in each of the above-mentioned books, because the average food item travels 1500 miles from farm to plate in North America. And, as Pollan says, along the way, it "has come to require a ramarkable amount of expert help" to determine where its origins are. "How did we ever get to a point," Pollan asks, "where we need investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from...?" How indeed?



If you and your family are thinking of embarking on one of these "edible conceits," Tumbledown thinks you'll need a new cookbook for eating what's fresh and local when it is in season. (Don't look for fresh raspberries in Indianapolis in December!) The best one Tumbledown has seen is Simply in Season. It is a sequel to the much-loved More-with Less, and now comes with a study guide. (What's a conceit if you cannot study what you eat? ...that's the point, right?) The sections are arranged (you guessed it) by what is fresh in season (or, in winter, what is available because it has been canned, frozen, or otherwise locally procured and preserved).

Don't Breathe the Popcorn! ...and Don't Inhale the McNuggets.

On April 26, 2002 the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) noted in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) that eight workers had developed a "respiratory illness resembling bronchiolitis obliterans" after working for 8-9 years at the same popcorn factory in Missouri. This was a 5- to 11-fold increase over expected rates of respiratory problems in workers attributable to exposure to toxins in the work place. The air in the plant was tested for diacetyl, "a ketone with butter-flavor characteristics," and found to range from 18 ppm to 1.3 ppm in the parts of the plant where the affected patients had worked. (There are no guidelines as to safe levels.) Obviously, causation is difficult to establish with certainty. But wouldn't you think someone in the agency that recommended "half-face, non-powered respirators equipped with P-100 filters and organic vapor cartridges" to protect workers at that popcorn plant in 2002 might have thought to ask the question whether consumers should be warned not to breathe deeply as they pull apart the corners of the microwave popcorn bag to let the steam escape? How many ppm of diacetyl are in that steam? Anyone care to measure?

Thanks to David Michaels (The Pump Handle), the world now knows that Dr. Cecile Rose, the chief occupational and environmental medicine physician at National Jewish Medical and Research Center, informed the FDA, CDC, EPA and OSHA--because they cannot, or will not, connect the dots themselves--that there might be a danger to consumers as well as workers.

Why is there diacetyl in Tumbledown's popcorn? Because there is no butter or salt in Tumbledown's house? No. Because diacetyl is required to preserve the popcorn in the waxed paper bag inside the plastic cover inside the cardboard box from spoiling before Tumbledown eats it? No. Given the modern wonders of the microwave oven, you could leave that popcorn in its husk on the cob for a very long time, a year and more, until you put it in a dish in the microwave. You could pop the corn right off that cob if you really wanted to--no additives, no preservatives. The diacetyl is simply there to fool Tumbledown into thinking that the popcorn is "buttery." It is there to provide the generic "butter-like" taste that makes the corn addictive. It is there to make the popcorn "More Buttery!" In other words, the diacetyl is there to legitimate the $31.60 price of a box of Pop Secret. (Pop Secret Popcorn, Jumbo Butter, 6-Count Packages, Pack of 8, corn for which the farmer may receive $3 per bushel.) Silly Tumbledown. He thought the diacetyl might have a legitimate function. So much for "value added."

The same could be said for the tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ) and the dimethylpolysiloxene in Chicken McNuggets. (See Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, which set off an internet furor over the comment that McNuggets contain "a form of butane.") Maybe these things will not kill you, at least not immediately or in such minuscule quantities, but do you really want them added to your food on purpose? (The ultimate purpose in these cases being to enhance the corporation's bottom line, not to enhance the health-improving qualities of the eater's meal [nor even to improve that dubious category known as value-added taste].) Of course McDonald's Inc. wouldn't poison us on purpose, but do you really want to assume that they've thoroughly tested the "health benefits" of all the chemicals they add? (You can't properly call them "ingredients" when they've never before been used for food in the history of humankind.) No. Of course McDonald's doesn't test every chemical independently. They depend on the FDA, CDC, EPA and OSHA for that. Is it labeled "nontoxic" and without a limit for exposure or consumption? Then it must be good enough to eat!

Yes, Tumbledown knows that every bite of tomato he ate this summer was loaded with "chemicals." Thankfully, they weren't chemicals that Tumbledown sprinkled on. There was no need to improve the taste of 'maters fresh from the vine. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer my food au naturel. ...more or less.

Tumbledown Farm