photograph by Rick Gush
Italians take their horticulture earnestly . So seriously , they ’ll even grow corn whiskey on a cliff , as shown above .
As usual , I ’ll bug out this week by mentioning one of the things I really wish about Italians . They take theirurban farmingandurban gardeningreally gravely here in Italy . I work as afarmandgardenconsultant of sort for 40 years in the U.S. , and my flavour was that most Americans consideredvegetablegardening a recreational pastime , something to unite them emotionally with the agrarian heritage from which we have rebound .
As such , the bit of half - hearted , poorly executed veg gardens I encounter was legendary . I was astonied at how many mass would really pay me to come over and face at a germ in their garden and I would at long last tell them to justfertilizemore . The few competent gardeners I saw were a tincture of a minority .
Here in Italy , veggie gardening is not a pastime , it is a virulent serious task ; one gets the idea that hoi polloi here are not only implicated about whatever they will produce for the current time of year , but also very serious about maintaining vegetable horticulture as an artistry upon which they may again have to rely on for endurance . This is , of course , because the Italians have , many times in their forward-looking history , actually had to live on whatever they could bring forth in their gardens and gather in the forests .
Modern Americans can afford to be cursory about their gardening , but I think we can already see that the Camelot that was the U.S. is fading away , and Americans will soon have to confront the seriousness of vegetable horticulture . In this context , I regard all U.S. gardeners as a part of a new civil shelter militia , except that this reserves is armed withshovels , waiting and grooming for the second when their campaign will be expect to ascertain the survival of the society .
This seems an appropriate office to mention one of my favorite people : Joel Salatin ofPolyface Farms . Amid all the idiocy of USDA and other destructive , exploitative agriculture , there rises a beacon of clear thinking and highly appropriate culture methodology . This cat is possibly the wisest farmer on the planet , and we could do worse than elect him president .
My newfangled favorite agrarian advocacy group these days isBackpack Farms , in Africa . This organization is teach people who really need food how to tame crop , and do so in a cost - efficient manner . It ’s not even a Greek valerian ; it ’s a for - earnings organization and is more effective than most of the much more costly kindly agencies that learn the same thing . My hat is off to them .
I think we in the U.S. should be doing the same thing . We should be training as many multitude as possible to produce meaning quantity of their own food . I experience it ’s not going to happen , but if I were president , I ’d addagricultural educationto all primary and high - school course of study .
To resolve , please think of that your horticulture is a most patriotic act and is preparing the rural area to survive in the changing times ahead . Whether you write in my name or Joel Salatin ’s on the next presidential balloting does n’t really matter .
Read more of Rick ’s Favorite Crops »
