Bum
Information Number Three: We've
all seen this one on TV: The gardening "expert" either hosting a
show or as an invited (and "professional") guest before a wide
audience of advice-hungry gardeners—usually on PBS—standing in the midst
of freshly cultivated and prepared garden soil...walking all over the
place...compacting the soil...leaving ugly footprints everywhere...while they grin into the camera,
spouting off all sorts of garden wisdom...all the while
teaching
viewers across the country that it's ok to compact the soil, it's alright to
leave unsightly footprints in garden soil and, worse, that it's also ok to do
that in the gardens of others as well. What are these so-called "experts" thinking?!
Truth be known...not much!
This may come as quite a surprise to some of
you: Tromping around in a cultivated garden—whether flower or vegetable—is
neither ok nor respectful of your soil...or the soils of your
friends or neighbors! Fact of the matter, tromping around in someone else's
garden—compacting the soil while leaving behind distracting and unsightly
footprints that, once imprinted, serve as an open invitation for others to
follow suit—is highly disrespectful...not to mention shamefully
irresponsible.
We've managed nearly 2-1/2 acres of gardens and
propagating beds for more than 20 years. Every season—without
fail—some thoroughly disrespectful faux gardener (my nephew calls
people like this "posers") deliberately and
with little concern for the hard work of others plods through the light and
airy high-organic-matter beds to either avoid another half-dozen steps to go
around to the other side using the pathway, or simply must walk out
into the middle to get a closer look at a leaf or flower, or pull a label that
any reasonable person with half a brain could read from three or four times the
distance.
Worse, if they re-bend to put the label back, they probably
either break it or shove it in backwards, or stick it in front of the wrong
plant. Unbelievably, sometimes they stoop down, pull it out, read it, then
simply drop it on the ground...or slip it into purse or pocket. Incidentally,
if I catch them stealing a label, I kick 'em right out of the garden and tell
them they're not welcome to return! No excuses...no argument.
Invariably, when they're caught and
called on the ugly and compacting footprint indiscretion, they bend down and with the least amount
of fingertip (lest they soil their dainty little hands) scatter the tiniest
bit of nearby soil to hide the sin. The compressed soil is still there. If
the soil is to be restored to its original tilth, I must stop what I'm doing,
walk to the tool rack, get a hoe or cultivator, walk back to the compressed
earth and fix it myself. Lately I've tried to hand the tool to the
offender...but they almost always thank me, scratch a little of what they almost
always call dirt to hide the print. How utterly disrespectful and
remarkably misinformed—by a so-called TV "expert!"
