The Spice of Life

There are two related aphorisms by which we check our overexuberance from time to time.  First, ‘You can be a fundamentalist anything,’ a reminder that a tendency to extremism is possible regardless of what philosophy you espouse.  And second, ‘Just because something is indigenous does not necessarily mean it is healthy,’ a reminder that going for the novel and recreating the past ought not replace doing solid research and making appropriate choices.

We recently got very excited by the discovery of a series of books about “The Lost Crops of Africa”, not least because one of the first vegetables mentioned in volume 2 was Amaranth, which is one of the plants we are experimenting with this year.  “Lost Crops” goes on at great length in rather excitable prose about the benefits of Amaranth as a nutritious potherb, about how it grows in sun or shade, elevation or the plains, humid or arid climates, how easy it is to grow… by the time we were done reading the glowing evaluation of Amaranth, we were ready to sell the stuff door-to-door.

Then we read an equally glowing account of Marama, and the adrenaline came back to proportionally healthier levels; that stuff ain’t growin’ in our yard.  Sorry.  We are exceptionally happy for the Khoisan peoples of the Kalahari Desert that there is a plant like this to provide seeds and tubers with high protein and moisture content, but honestly, there is just no way we could possibly grow every exciting new thing to come along, especially when it isn’t being actively cultivated anywhere in the world.  Myrtle likes experimentation, but sometimes somebody somewhere has to be even-tempered enough to say “Whoa, Bessie!”

Ultimately, every gardener has to make some fairly basic choices regarding what to plant.  We like variety, and this is well represented on our “to do” board.  We have categories for “Planning”, “On Order”, “Germinating”, “In Production”, and “Dormant”, covering the gamut of things we’d like to plant but have not found sources for, things we have already purchased and will soon plant, things we have planted, things currently fruiting, and perennials and fruit which are currently out of season. 

We only have a half-acre lot, but even so, we are at 60 varieties and counting on the big board in all categories.  Part of this is by design – we wish to avoid the perils of mono-cropping at all costs, to the point of trying to not plant even two tomato plants of the same variety next to each other whenever possible, although that degree of pickiness may not be practicable on the macro level.

Part of this cornucopia of variety, however, is due purely to enthusiasm.  We see something new or different, and we want it.  Like everything else in life, this has its ups and downs.  The advantages to giving in to such impulses are obvious – if you are excited about a plant, you are more likely to be careful in tending it.  We just planted currants, for example, and even though they are just seedlings, they are getting far more attention than our native muscadine grapes receive.  Every advantage these out-of-region specialty plants can get, we intend to give.

The flip side, however, is serious and important.  Because excitement can lead to the procurement of plants which are unique, it often means getting plants which are not well adapted.  The aforementioned currants, in our case, are a dicey proposition.  They may do well because our yard represents a microclimate they would not encounter elsewhere in Texas – we have sufficient moisture available from collected rainwater to offset the drought which would shrivel them even fifty feet away from their new home, and plenty of shade to protect them from the noonday sun of August and September – but then again, they may do very poorly due to the undeniable fact that they are Zone 5 plants and we are Zone 8, verging on 9.

To counterbalance our enthusiasm, we remember some general principles learned from a lifetime of overcoming obstacles.  The first principle in avoiding catastrophe while doing something risky is to counterbalance your risk with something equally safe.  This is part of why we have so many fruit vines around the place, particularly the native Muscadines.  We couldn’t kill those off if we wanted to.  Between blackberries (which grow wild in the Brazos Valley on every fence bordering every borrow ditch) and wild grapes, we will always have success with something, even if our crazy new ideas don’t go over so well.

Then, too, there is the basic fact that old standby crops like tomatoes, peppers, cowpeas and broccoli all thrive in chicken poop compost.  We can afford to take a chance on a few harebrained schemes like currants, given that the success rate with the staples will remain fairly steady, so long as we are willing to muck out the chicken coop.

So, we won’t be planting all of the “Lost Crops of Africa”, nor will we plant every exotic from the Arctic Circle, nor every colorful plant we hear about from the Amazon basin, but we will occasionally take a stab at something out of the ordinary.  We tend to think of cayenne as the spice of life, but variety comes in a close second.

Happy farming!

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