Time for a reality check, gardeners
By Jerry Davis September 19, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

It happens to all of us and I am one of the worst offenders. When gardening in New York state, in Zone 3, I wasted many dollars and hours trying to grow plants adapted to Zones 4 and even 5.

After laboriously bending down the poor fig tree into a trench, covering it with a thick layer of leaves, boards and then tarps in the fall, imagine the frustration when it refused to resurrect itself the following spring. Why did I, just before the first frost, wrestle the giant rubber tree plant back into the house, where it shed leaves and sulked all winter? 

The final blow, my epiphany, my own reality check, came when all of the cuttings from my collection of rex begonias, artfully smuggled into Mexico, slowly expired in this dry climate. OK, you win, Mother Nature!

A visit to the botanical garden El Charco del Ingenio opened my eyes to the possibilities of growing native plants. After all, they do grow all by their lonesomes, with no help from outsiders.

Bugs chew on them, winds buffet them, the sun beats down unmercifully, rain is sporadic or absent, and they thrive. Not only that, but properly grouped they lend themselves to sophisticated landscaping. Alluring effects are possible with cactus and agaves. Good landscapers like to combine different shades and textures to achieve an interesting garden design, and these plant groups provide lots of contrasts. Round, fat, skinny, tall, short, spiky, smooth, dark, light, sprawling, compact and just plain weird are forms easily found. The added bonus is that they are relatively carefree. 

Also, many of our common garden annual’s wild ancestors grow here. Zinnias (only red ones), marigolds, tradescantia, ageratum, cosmos, daisies, ornamental sage and the budding sunflowers are scattered among the grasses.

Weeding? Mowing? Fertilizing? Watering? Transplanting? Eliminate these nasty words from your vocabulary. Go native!

Different types of wild grasses are now displaying seed heads in a variety of colors and configurations. One sends up a stalk with alternating horizontal seedpods that remind me of the metal climbing spikes on utility poles.

 My favorite and one of the most common is a delicate shade of pink that is especially lovely when backlit by the setting sun. It makes the roadsides look like ribbons of pink gauze. Some seed heads are maroon, others shimmering silver and of course all shades of green are displayed.

If your gardening budget is limited, inspect the offerings of babies that the botanical garden sells. The selection is wonderful and with some TLC those cute little cactuses will grow into giants, especially the nopales that eventually rival small trees.

The seeds of wildflowers can be gathered when ripe and simply scattered over the soil and raked in. With the coming of the rains they will sprout and give a wonderful show in August and September. 

When you visit the plantings at El Charco, take a camera and record the gardens that appeal to you. No law says you cannot steal ideas from the talented landscapers who designed the beds near the visitor center and the structure that houses the cactus collection. 

The botanical garden is located behind the Plaza Real del Conde, which is next to the traffic circle with the equestrian statue of Allende in the center.

When you go around the circle avert your eyes from the uninspired stones and the grasses and agaves planted in the median and pray that the person who is going to design the plantings in the circle itself will follow you to the botanical garden for inspiration, too.

News from Vida Verde
By Georgeann Johnson

Vida Verde is a budding group coalescing around the urgent issue of food security that has been thrust upon Mexico, including our own San Miguel de Allende municipality (the city and surrounding rural areas).

Monsanto and other biotechnology companies are now entering Mexico after a 14-year “delay” under a NAFTA agreement. For 14 years, the effects of transgenic foods have been studied, with the mixed results we all expect from such studies. The experts hired by the biotech corporations say these genetically altered foods are OK. Outside experts often disagree.

Many of us in this group have been researching transgenic foods, or genetically modified organisms, and feel very strongly that we don’t want our children, or ourselves, to be the guinea pigs. We feel the urgency because we know that once transgenic corn comes into an area that it spreads to natural (criollo) corn. Transgenic corn takes over the natural corn. Once it is done, it’s done—no more criollo corn, varieties which have been cultivated here for 8,000 years. Which would you rather eat? Corn cultivated for eight millennia? Or corn developed in a laboratory over the past 10 years by a technique that violates the “laws” of Nature?

The best defense is to educate people on the risky future we will face if transgenic corn (or soy, wheat, rice, etc.) contaminates San Miguel farmlands and markets. Vida Verde meets monthly over comida to discuss progress in education and establishing farmers’ markets. They have collected information on local organic farms and products, and have found several DVDs, some in English and some in Spanish, that educate people about this looming danger. One Mexican member has been meeting with campesinos in outlying ranchos and distributing written and visual information.

In the recent meeting, Angeles Agreda spoke about the information on “worm farming” that she has been learning from agronomist Ana Beatriz Cordero. She presented a plan of how worm farms can be established in a rancho community (or in your own garden). Agreda spoke about the enthusiasm of many people on the ranchos for having their own kitchen gardens (hortalizes) to grow organic basics like herbs, squash, onions and tomatoes. Several ranchos are interested in the worm farms where the soil is greatly enriched by the worms “doing their thing.”

Group discussions focused on the possibility of combining economics, education and enthusiasm to produce food security. Like kitchen and worm gardens, this can lead to a transition to organics and to enhancing food security for other sanmiguelenses. No matter what our interests and work entail, we all eat.

As we enter this month of Fiestas Patrias, it can be worthwhile to think about defending, at least, our own community. In this revolution the issues are not guns and killing, but educating, growing and living.

If you would like to educate yourself, come to the first showing of The World According to Monsanto. This French film, shot in various European countries, is about the onslaught of Monsanto on the takeover of both crops and animals. This is the first showing of the film in English in San Miguel, so it is best to buy tickets in advance.

Europe, of course, has banned transgenic imports. So have a dozen other countries. This begs the question of why the three NAFTA countries have not banned transgenics.

If you would like to join, or help, the growing Vida Verde group, they need your presence. One immediate way is to help a campesino start a worm farm. It costs 1,500 pesos to buy the simple basic materials to start a worm farm: worms, plastic, good soil and some lessons in worm farming. Call these Vida Verde members if you would like to contribute in some way: Angeles Agreda at 154-7529 (Spanish); Jorge Catalán of the Natura store at 154-8629 (bilingual); Georgeann Johnson at 152-6902 (English); Kirsten West at 044 (415) 101-4155 (trilingual). 

Monsanto seen through reality goggles
By Georgeann Johnson

Film
The World According to Monsanto
Wed, Sep 24, 5pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
50 pesos

The extraordinary documentary The World According to Monsanto has just been released in an English version and premieres in San Miguel this week.

Directed by Marie-Monique Robin, this French film documents the controversial past of the 90-year-old chemical company Monsanto, which engineered pesticides and chemical toxins such as Agent Orange. Separating itself from its contaminated past, the new Monsanto brings us “the future” by promoting its genetically altered seed and pesticides. 

As Monsanto (and other biotech companies) now race to genetically engineer (and patent) the world's food supply, we, the consumers, are left not so blissfully unaware. Monsanto is the world’s poster child for malignant corporate influence in government and technology. Its controversial past of pressuring and selling some of the most toxic products ever made is still largely unknown to the public. There are a few films like this, and a growing number of books, that disclose and inform the public what has happened to our food supply, along with the Internet. 

Monsanto, and other biotech companies, have just been given carte blanche to enter Mexico. They are currently planting “experimental” fields. Birds fly. Winds blow. Where are these “experimental” fields, exactly? The public is not allowed to know that.

If you think that these toxic products that have come to market via misleading reports and pressure tactics are “substantially equivalent” to real food, then you are wearing virtual reality goggles.

This documentary provides first-hand accounts by victims, scientists and politicians that show how Monsanto has powered itself into the lead of the gene-altering technologies. 

Put on your reality goggles and venture forth to see this devastating exposé that will open your eyes.