dirt / By Amy Stewart

Ask Them Nicely

Humboldt County’s Geneva Convention in the War on Weeds

(March 19, 2009)  A couple weeks ago I gave a talk about my garden at a garden show. That’s kind of a weird thing for me to do; usually I assume that my garden is not remotely slide show-worthy and I don’t ever offer to give a presentation about it. But the organizers of this event insisted that their audience wanted the behind-the-scenes tour, so I obliged.

Mostly I filled the hour with charming (to me) tales of my chickens’ antics and interesting bug photography experiments I’d conducted with my camera’s macro lens. Really, it’s a wonder I’m even allowed out of the house, much less given a microphone. But everyone feigned interest and a few people even asked questions.

And I did talk about my garden, and I showed the three or four really good pictures I’ve managed to take over the years. Since the theme of the event was sustainability (this, by the way, is the theme of every event being held this year, from garden shows to motocross racing) I mentioned in a kind of an offhand way that of course the garden was entirely organic, that I didn’t use any sort of harsh chemicals and didn’t really bother buying any bug killers at all, organic or otherwise. Bugs need to eat, too. I don’t mind having them around.

At that point, a guy raised his hand and said, “If you don’t spray, what do you do about the weeds?”

And do you know, he actually stumped me for a minute. I thought, “Why would I use bug spray on the weeds?”

Then I remembered that there are, in fact, chemicals that kill plants, and that people buy them for the specific purpose of killing plants.

That’s how out of touch I am. I forgot about herbicides. What a little bubble we live in here in Humboldt County.

So once I figured it out, I said, “Uh. Well. I pull them up. Or — sometimes I don’t.” I think the exchange was pretty baffling for both of us.

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