A Surprize Today

I garden.  I garden a lot.  I've been gardening almost all my life.  My Dad gardened using "modern" synthetical fertilizers and chemicals.    His soil was hard as rock and his hybrid veggies tasted funny.  His garden struggled to survive.  Every year, he had to roto-till the soil to loosen it enough to pland seeds.

Grampa was a gardener.  He was an organic gardener.  He grew Winter cover crops that died back in Spring.  He used natural fertilizers.  To plant seeds, he merely dragged a grub hoe along the row in the soft soil.  He planted heirloom seeds.  His crops were lush and tasty.

When I got my first chance to garden, I followed Grampas practices mostly.  I subscribed to Organic Gardening magazine.  Organic Gardening magazine was rather dull.  The writer's were straight-forward folks concerned with getting good crops.  They would say things like "Don't fertilize your crops, improve the soil; good crops come from good soil" and "Grow earthworms" and "You should be able to push a finger all the way into your soil.

But the magazine was failing in the 80s, the old writers were dying off and they chagned their approach.  They hired Mike McGrath as editor, paid more attention to new crop varieties, and began to promote "organic living" as a lifestyle.  Which was not all bad, but I wasn't really interested in the newest organic clothes, installing bamboo floors, or cooking.  Well, OK, I was interested in cooking, but I had a cooking magazine for that.

Mike McGrath was editor-in-chief of Organic Gardening magazine from 1990 through 1997.   He brought a less-serious approach to the magazine.  In fact, he turned the Letters section into his own personal stand-up humor show.  My recollection is that Organic Gardening magazine tried to become "hip.  I didn't like the change and switched to National Gardening magazine.

Mr. McGrath returned as the the host of the nationally syndicated public radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and WTOP radio Garden Editor since 1999.  WTOP is a local news/weather/traffic station in Washington, DC, where I live.  On Saturdays, he has a few-minute spot each hour with gardening advice..  "You Bet Your Garden" is not on any local stations here.

Trust me, this IS actually getting to a point eventually, I PROMISE...

I used to listen to WTOP weekdays during the morning and afternoon commute for traffic and weather information.  I only discovered his Saturday episodes by accident.  And remembering his tendency for joking about letters from subscibers, I was unsure about his advice.  And I was justified in that.  His radio spots usually took listener comments and made fun of them, always pointing out why they were wrong. 

BUT, he did give good advice on the timing of gardenwork and he was organic, so I listened.  Then I discovered the WTOP website and found all his spots each week were on a single theme and readable at any time.

I often disagreed with his advice.  I learned why this week (more about that below).

His Nov 2nd theme was composting and he said there were some things to never add to your compost (food scraps, wood ashes, junk mail, and lawn clippings) and that he would explain about that the next week.  In the Nov 9th article, he didn't!  And because I add 3 of the 4 items to my compost, I was curious.

So I emailed him.  He is experienced, but so am I.  I didn't want to challenge him, so I focussed on the food scraps (wood ashes are perfectly fine in slight amounts and lawn clippings from organic lawn are fine, too but there can be problems).

I pointed out that he had not explained about the "forbidden" compost items as promised and that I really wanted to know why not food scraps.  I included a few pictures of my compost bins and explained that I used food scraps successfully.

To my utter surprise, he replied!  And this is where it gets interesting...

He asked where I was located and added "Beautiful Compost Bin".  So I said MD and sent a couple other pictures explaining some of the details of the construction.  He replied again and asked for a more specific location.

After a couple more email exchanges, he stopped replying and I expected that was the end of it.  Well,  OK, he's busy and has radio spots to create, and exchanging some positive emails was reasonably exciting.  But that wasn't the half of it!

The sound bites on WTOP are actually written beforehand and posted on the WTOP website Fridays under a "Garden Plot" menu item.  The spoken radio spots are broadcast (usually) at :51 minutes on the hour Saturday.

When I casually looked at it Friday (yesterday), I WAS THE ENTIRE TOPIC OF HIS POST! 

I initially cringed seeing "Mark in Waldorf", because he tends to tell people what they are doing WRONG.  But not THIS time!  He showed pictures of my compost bins, adding "who built some of the most perfect compost bins I have ever seen".  I was drop-dead stunned...

Granted, he defended his position on wood ashes, lawn clippings, and even food scraps.  But he credited me with knowing what I was doing, and added something that made me reconsider my opinion of his posts.

He ended his post with:

"My weekend shots of advice are geared to impart the knowledge to accomplish success in 50 seconds".

And 

"Bottom line: My goal here is to get as many listeners as possible to shred and use their fall leaves. Spent coffee grounds are the single best addition. Everything else introduces the risk of compost failure, and I want first-timers to achieve compost success.  So shred those leaves! (And, hire Mark to build your bins.)"

And I finally understood what he was getting at.  He is trying to help beginners and casual gardeners to achieve some success in the easiest ways to encourage them to continue gardening and learn more.   His goal isn't to try to teach ME how to compost; I know how to do that.  His goal is to get some people started at it easily, and to help newcomers who are having problems how to do it better. 

Sometimes you can to help people start by making things simple, but workable.  I get that now, and my opinion of him is improved.  Sometimes, you have to understand intent in order to understand what other people are doing or saying, and that isn't always easy or obvious.

Mike wasn't telling ME not to use food scraps, wood ashes, and grass clippings.

He was discouraging beginners from just making a garbage pile of kitchen waste, dumping buckets of burned pressure-treated wood pallets (with all the toxins in the ashes), and putting chemically-treated synthetically-fertilized lawn-clippings into their new compost bins and being disappointed when nothing happens because the pH, toxins, and lawn-weed killers kill off all the microbes that make a compost pile work.

He knows *I* know that food scraps do properly decompose, clean wood ashes from normal trees are OK in small amounts and that grass clippings from my organic lawn are safe to use in my compost. 

And I will be sure to listen to his radio spots later today, LOL!