Me, Centerfold
August 3rd, 2009 · 1 Comment · Posted in Blog
Photographers lurking in the garden
Yesterday when I was listing the flood of inquiries I receive each spring from media types and would-be gardeners I neglected to mention the upsurge in interest on the part of academe in what we gardeners are up to. I’ve had several students of sustainability visit the garden to study and make notes. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours with photogrpher and journalist Laura Elizabeth Pohl, who is teaching a photojournalism class on sustainability at George Washington University in the coming semester and wanted to use me as an example of the kind of project she’ll be expecting from her students.
Laura is not a gardener. But she is a darn good at her chosen metier, as evidenced by the writeup and slide show she has posted on her blog, The Adventurous Photographer. Those are some pretty sharp photos of me tending to a few long neglected garden chores, such as finally bundling our garlic for curing (they’ve been sitting out on the front porch all this time) and planting seeds in trays for the fall. Laura arrived at 7 a.m.; now I wish I’d shaved for my closeup. But I did have a chance to freshen up before we sat down for a lengthy video interview in the kitchen.
What emerges from Laura’s questions is that our focus on food gardening on our small urban plot about a mile from the White House has raised our consciousness about our imperiled planet. Besides growing vegetables, we’ve changed our behavior in a number of ways to reduce our carbon footprint. Because of our focus on composting to feed the soil, as opposed to using artificial fertilizers, we recycle almost everything that passes through our home, to the point that our family now generates barely one small bag of trash each week. We save water from the kitchen to use in the garden. We walk almost everywhere rather than using the automobile. And of course we buy much less produce from other sources, since we are growing our own. In other words, where carbon is concerned, we’ve become pretty thrifty since we started gardening.
I’ve also received two visits from Jacqulyn Marie Maisonneuve, a photojournalism student and the Corcoran school here in D.C. who is constructing her thesis around the idea of sustainability. She has posted the results of our garden sessions together here and here. Jacqulyn also is following a couple that gardens and caters using local ingredients, as well as a new honey bee operation at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown D.C., where the chefs are planning to use the honey in their menus.
Suddenly,the whole world has a fascination with food gardening, and that can’t be a bad thing.
Not only are you correct in saying that it can’t be a bad thing, it is, in fact, a WONDERFUL thing. Doesn’t it feel nice to be a part of it? I know that sometimes I must sound like a broken record (is that still a viable term?) to my friends and family when I go on and on about gardening, buying locally, and shunning the supermarkets. Guess what, though? I’m not stopping anytime soon.