cakeaustin

Over the weekend I attended the American Community Gardening Association annual conference in Columbus, Ohio. Franklin Park Conservatory was our venue, and it was strikingly beautiful.

Did you play with Lite-Brites as a kid? I did. As I was passing through a hallway toward the Chihuly glass exhibit, I spied this little boy pushing lights into a giant Lite-Brite interactive screen. I thought about how the building we were in so closely resembled the U.S. Capitol that the boy was right to use red, white and blue in his rendering.

That same afternoon, I was given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tour the Scotts Miracle-Gro corporate headquarters and garden. Employees are given the opportunity to plant in the on-campus food garden, which we were told is 1/3 organic. It was interesting to see Miracle-Gro’s conventional and organic products being utilized in such close proximity. Had I been charged with the product, I’d have created completely separate gardens. Then again, I’d not have planted a garden meant for chemical usage in the first place.

Our tour guide could not have been more gracious, and I want to temper my comments with the understanding that while I appreciate having been allowed onto the site, I do not agree with many of the business decisions taken by this corporation.

Please look at this zucchini. It has not only been allowed to grow to an unholy size but has broken through its white picket fence. For me, the giant, renegade vegetables served as a cautionary tale – not a success story. One elderly lady in our group remarked that she would not want to use a product that would cause her vegetables to grow so large, as it seemed unnatural and might decrease the nutrient density. This was all without mentioning the chemicals.

While there was evidence of the Miracle-Gro organic variant in use, from the branded bags of soil to the reasonably-sized produce, the conventional loomed around nearly every corner. There was even a totem of sorts:

Tomatoes so enormous they had toppled the plants and pumpkins which were beginning to compete for a cameo on the Charlie Brown Halloween special were some of the garden’s offerings. Employees are to donate the majority of their produce to a local food pantry. On the day we visited it seemed as though the employees might have been on deadline for a new variant. Which makes sense, given the 24 pesticide products Scotts was ordered by the EPA to recall earlier this year.

Passing by what we were told was the Chairman’s garden, I knelt to get a closer look at the plaque. “Better Living Through Chemistry,” it read.

As I notice more and more instances of greenwashing across sectors, I think about how corporations can’t become something they aren’t, from the inside-out. In this case, a great American brand, having looked around and seen that the world has changed – that people actually do care what we’re putting on our lawns and gardens, and that the runoff from those treatments affects our watersheds – very much wants to compete in the new world of organic products. The problem is, we already associate this brand with what it does best.

I would encourage you to buy your dirt from local businesses which have long built their soil and compost without taking the easy route. In Central Texas two of my favorites are Natural Gardener and GeoGrowers.