Poverty can be defined a few different ways. For example, African poverty is much different than American poverty. U.S. poverty pertains to a lack of quality education, healthcare, and access to fresh, nutritious foods. These problems usually stem from the economic hardships of inner city living. Food security should matter to everyone. Without access to food and proper nutrition, humans cannot flourish and are more burdened with health issues, thus
The cukes are in collusion with the zucchinis: We’ll grow when your back is turned And crowd out the basil and carrots, Leaving you with green torpedoes To aim at your neighbors. *** Stephanie Djock is a writer based in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she lives with her husband and an ever-expanding orchid collection and garden. She is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Hamline University, with an emphasis on
Gardening means many things, depending on why you might want it or need it in your life. Time has shaped this art from culturally diverse backgrounds, and people will continue to find more uses for it every day, especially with the Green Revolution reshaping American culture. I would like to share with you what this practice means to me as a “gardener.” Along the way, I’ll attempt to show that
I never knew I could be the sort of woman who grew poppies. These women live in gigantic houses with terraced gardens, boasting dripping sedum and perfect bunches of perennials, color coded, tendrilling out of their hibernation in perfect cycles. These women, some sturdy with spiky hair, licking their girlfriend’s ear in public, some in long overall type dresses, tight curly hair never getting into their eyes, their hunky husbands,
Winter is a dangerous time of year for a gardener. The catalogs feature rediscovered heirloom seeds with gorgeous sounding names: Dragon’s Tongue beans, Crimson Curtain and Banana Leg tomatoes, Painted Serpent cucumbers, King of the North peppers. They sound like legends and poetry. The herbs sound like characters from old fairy tales with names like feverfew, sneezewort, wormwood, and heartsease. I want them all. It’s easy to order those seed
My dad had a knack for growing things, and just about every seed, cutting, or plant he placed in the ground grew like gangbusters. If they didn’t, he’d by god do something about it. The shelves in his lean-to garden shed held an arsenal of insecticides, herbicides, fertilizers, turf builders, weed killers, and slug granules. I believed I had a knack, too, but I paled in comparison to the master.
