Gardening during World-Wide Crises

Gardening and agriculture has been a massive part of human evolution throughout time. It's also extremely important to human evolution as well. By learning how to culture crops and better manage the soil, we as a species have achieved amazing possibilities. We've learned to rotate crops to ensure soil salinity and fertility, learned how to breed plants to make new ones called hybrids, and even genetically modify plants to be larger for more sustenance and nutrients. Now, GMOs are not necessarily bad, but some people don't like how we genetically change the food we eat (even though we've been doing it for millennia).

With all of the stay-at-home orders being issued by political officials due to the spread of COVID-19, it's hard to stay busy. Whether you're binge re-watching The Office for the 6th time or playing video games religiously, they can get boring after such repetition. So today, I want to talk about how gardening has been used for therapy and busy work during world crises like this.

In the early 20th century, George Washington Carver, an African American agricultural scientist and inventor wrote an agriculture tract discussing the importance of gardening during times of crisis. Of course, the crisis he was referring to was World War 1, the bloodiest and most atrocious global conflict humanity has ever seen. Carver brought up the idea of a "Victory garden" which are gardens in private residences and public spaces that were used to grow and produce food for rations for soldiers overseas.

These types of gardens continued to see popularity during WW2 and other conflicts at the time. They kept housewives and children busy while their husbands and fathers fought overseas. Of course this is an outdated stereotype that women primary use gardens, but it isn't hard to believe that women were the poster children of V gardens or gardening in general. A majority of men were at war, leaving most of their wives, sisters, daughters, etc. at home.

A similar spurt of gardening popularity grew during other times of crisis as well. More specifically, during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 and other larger outbreaks, there were an overwhelming amount of reports of depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses. Scientists can't exactly link these spikes in mental illness to pandemics, but it's safe to say that the foreboding sense of mass death would make a large number of people depressed and anxious. Doctors who specialize in mental health say that distractions are important parts of balancing mental health. Now distractions are in no way, shape, or form cures for these ailments and as someone with these illnesses, I'd be quite offended if that were suggested to me as a cure, but it is scientifically proven that distractions are effective short-term resolutions to battling depression and anxiety.

One of these distractions is gardening. While it's unknown how much garden activity was done during the 1918 pandemic, it's a probable possibility that people turned to it as a source of entertainment since people during that time didn't have YouTube or Netflix to consume their time.

The current pandemic that is affecting our society has showed that gardening is actually one of the more popular quarantine activities. National retail seed sales since mid-Feburary into early March spiked by almost 23% which suggest that a lot of people are in fact gardening. However; for the sake of gardening, this pandemic couldn't have come at a better time. With the warmth of Spring just around the corner and all the time in the world, crops and herbs can grow and be maintained with absolute care.

I hope that this blog post was helpful and educational about how gardening was used as a therapeutic and patriotic hobby to boost morale and keep hands busy during a crisis.

Ozette Potatoes - Washington's oldest Potato species and the history behind it

The Ozette potato, Solanum tuberosum, or more locally known as Makah Ozette or Anna Cheeka's Ozette, is the oldest grown potato species in the Pacific Northwest. This plant was grown and cultivated for over two centuries by the native Makah tribe. To learn about the potato, we first must learn about the people who used it as a primary agricultural food source for so long.

The Makah (which translates to "the people who live by the rocks and seagulls") people have been living in the Northwest tip of the Olympic Pennisula for around 3,800 years. The tribe lived around what is now Neah Bay, Washington. They built their villages and longhouses out of the local populations of Western Cedar tree. The Western Cedar was vital to their way of life. They used its bark to make water-resistant clothing and bags. They used trunks to make canoes and roots to make baskets. 

A Makah Settlement (1900)

The Makah diet consisted of mostly seal, fish, shellfish, and whale with Ozette potatoes as a filler or side. Tribeswomen also harvested nuts, fruits, and edible roots and plants. They also hunted occasionally for local deer and elk populations. The Makah people grew primarily Ozette potatoes. 

The origin of the Ozette potato is from early historical accounts of Spaniards who arrived in the NW in the late 18th century. The Spaniards built Fort Salvador Fidalgo, now Neah Bay in 1792. The gardens at this fort contained several 'New World' plants such as potatoes and tomatoes, with one of these potatoes being the Ozette potato. In the 1860's, a schoolteacher who lived among Makah, James Swan, indicated that the potato was a staple of the tribe's diet. The potato was exclusively grown in Makah gardens until 1980 when it was marked by a seed vendor in Idaho. 

A phylogenetic study done at the Washington State University showed that the potato may have directly originated from South America while all other potato varieties arrived from European imports. 

New Manager Bio: Trystan Rackham

Hello all! My name is Trystan Rackham and I am a new garden manager for this semester. I am very excited to work in the garden this Spring. There are a few exciting projects on the horizon that I am trying to organize so I am excited to be a part of the garden management team! Here are a few things about me to better know me:

I am a senior working towards my BS for Environmental Science. I have academic and research interests in specifically climate change and ecological impacts of climate change, but the environment in general is what I care about most. I am not originally from the Pacific Northwest like most of the other garden managers. I came to Saint Martin's University from Pennsylvania. When I was younger, I never lived in the same place for long because my father was in the military so we moved around quite a bit to places like Hawaii, Utah, Colorado, and then several places in Pennsylvania itself. So I am more or less an "implant" as people call it.

Me at Elwha River last February

When I was younger I didn't really have a large outdoor life due to my parents also not having a large interest in the outdoors. However, as I grew older and even to the present, I love going on hikes and spending my time outside. I've always had a connection to the earth and that's only increased as time goes on. Around the time I was in middle school, my faith evolved from Roman Catholic (my mother's beliefs) to Norse Pagan or Asatru (belief in the Aesir, or belief in the gods). So my religious beliefs and my interest in nature blend really well and it definitely serves as a motivation for my aspirations and interest in the environment.

I don't have a ton of gardening experience, but I was in 2016's Fall UNI101 Oikos floor class with Catherine, a former garden manager and in that class we did a lot of work in the garden, so that was a great experience and I wanted to use those skills I learned from that class more.