Mésange, rouge-gorge, merle et moineau--chickadee, robin, starling and sparrow. They are all outside the window as I write, sitting at the kitchen table so I can watch them flitting in and out of the cedar hedge, roosting in the highest branches of a tall pine tree, basking in the morning sun on the still-bare branches of my neighbor’s cherry tree.
Still bare, but not for long, shouts this last weekend in February, as fields, gardens, vegetable patches and flowerbeds entice us into believing that spring is just around the corner. The sun is shining—has been for three entire days after months of gray and rain. The morning frost is heavy, but by noon temperatures are in the 50’s and rising. It feels like spring to me.
I’ve been avoiding my garden. It looks dismal in morning mist and rain, with trees black and bare. The earth, undermined by some very ambitious moles, has been turned into a bumpy terrain of muddy hills and swampy green valleys: this is my lawn, its uneven sweep interrupted here and there by what looks to be Celtic burial mounds.
They are my attempts at organic farming. As I build new vegetables plots with layers of branches, cut grass, dead leaves, scraps from the kitchen and horse manure, I worry that local authorities, who have a view of my land, will soon be accusing me of turning it into a private cemetery.
Very haphazardly, I must admit, I am trying my hand at permaculture, as defined by Bill Mollison, an Australian professor of Environmental Psychology: (It) “is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.” That’s what he wrote in his 1991 book An Introduction to Permaculture.
Come true spring (I know this weekend is just a teaser), I plan to turn those “burial mounds” into living earth, to test associations of carrots, radishes, and onions; lettuce and cabbage; pole beans and zucchini; tomatoes and basil. That is the plan. Will it become reality? The sun warms the earth’s surface; underneath, it’s icy cold. I still have weeks to wait before I plant, but spring cleaning can already begin.
This weekend I’ve filled sacks with what the French call “green refuse”— “déchets verts,” trimmings from the cedar hedge, branches from a hazelnut tree. As I cut, I remember how delighted I was to discover a few in my garden. Times have changed. Now I see hazelnut trees as “pesky weeds,” trees that grow too fast, whose leaves block rain gutters and wispy branches dip over vegetable plots, depriving young shoots of light.
Catkins are already hanging from their branches. I glance at them suspiciously. Pollination is underway. Hazelnut trees can be incorporated into permaculture, I’ve read, and I should not (as I do) treat them as adversaries.
I’ve also been taking care of my fruit trees, my “chouchous,” my little darlings. I already had an apple and a pear tree. Last November 25th, on St. Catherine’s Day, the ideal moment of the year for planting trees because “à la Sainte Catherine, tout bois prend racine”— all wood takes root, I planted another apple and pear tree. I also planted a “mirabellier de Nancy,” a tree producing tiny yellow plums with a reddish blush, mirabelles, native to the region around the city of Nancy and, somehow it seems appropriate, named after me.
I scratch the earth at the trees’ base, but not too deep. I don’t want to disturb earthworms or microorganisms already at work. I sprinkle some fertilizer, “compatible with organic farming,” as I read on the box. I spray them with a spray, also “compatible with organic farming,” called “agriculture bio” in French. Last summer, blackflies coated the underside of the leaves on my cherry tree, and I’ve been forewarned: they are wintering in the bark and it is best to treat before true springtime sets in.
“Compatible with organic farming”—I’ve been wondering what that expression entails, so I’ve looked it up on the internet. I discover that in France certain products harmful to the earth, such as copper sulfate, are permitted. For organic wine producers, for example, they are essential, for without the use of copper sulfate as a fungicide, the grapes could not survive.
On the site of Ecocert, a private French agency that has become a world leader in the field of the certification of organic products, I find long lists of crop-production products, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers, “compatible with organic farming.” Some can pollute the soil or nearby bodies of water; others must not be applied to plants meant for human consumption. Obviously, organic farming does not eliminate all risks or damage.
Yet none are comparable to the dangers of the herbicide Roundup, considered a probable carcinogen. Roundup 360 pro was banned for sale in France in January 2019. At my local Centre Leclerc, the French Walmart, I found it on the shelves in the gardening section. There’s no trace of it, however, on Leclerc’s site on line. The local store may be trying to get rid of its last containers in stock.
As for the insecticide I’ve used on my fruit trees, it is composed of 85% canola oil, but what about the remaining 15%? The instructions warn against using the product near a body of water.
On Friday, February 22th, high school and university students throughout Europe skipped classes because they had more urgent things to do. They were protesting their elders’ betrayal of the planet, outside Parliament in London, in front of the Ministry of the Transition Ecologic in Paris. The movement #Youth4Climate, set in motion by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, has spread to cities across Europe as, every Friday, young Europeans protest their parents’ neglect of planet Earth.
Permaculture, organic gardening, careful recycling, I’m trying to do my bit. I take the train, walk a lot, use my car sparingly, but in the country I’d have a hard time living without one. Sometimes I wonder if my actions even matter; it may simply be too late.
Meanwhile the sun shines, the garden calls. Snowdrops have blossomed, crepe myrtle is in flower. Tulips and hyacinths are pushing up out of the earth.
Today and every day, Mother Earth reminds us, we can’t live without her.
