IS SPRING IN THE AIR OR IS IT JUST GLOBAL WARMING?

 Three weeks ago I noticed the very first sprouts pushing up through the cold, winter soil... the very first signs of spring in the civilized world. If you happen to be fortunate enough to live near the woods you will see the signs a little earlier in the may-apple sprouts and the fiddleheads of the cinnamon and other temperate ferns. Today while driving with a friend I saw forsythia blossoms... and was amazed... I asked myself quietly, "Is Spring in the air, (a chilly low 30 something), or is it just Global Warming?
Years ago even when we had an unseasonably premature spring we were talking about seeing this flora no earlier than say late April/early March... but spring in mid-February? Never! 
 



 Last year I played it pretty safe, not my usual mixture of cooking herbs and flowers. This spring I plan to add some herbs such as rosemary, basil and thyme. Since I have an amazing southern exposure on my balcony I'll have to keep the thyme in a shady spot because it is wont to burn in the direct D.C sun. Dill, one of my favorite cooking herbs is definitely out because it requires a delicate cool and moist climate I could never approximate on my infernally hot balcony. Mint is great as well if you keep it clipped back which of course means lots of mojitos. Tomatoes would proliferate on my sunny-hot balcony but it's vines would also completely take it over so tomatoes are out...

Last spring and summer I decided to feature only one flower, a miniature petunia in very brilliant cadmium yellow. The prior spring I had the same species but in a rich cadmium orange. My balcony is populated with six 5.5ft tall spruce trees. I had planned to place terracotta planters between them and plant alternate boxes of herbs and flowers. So I am still contemplating what I will do but I will buy my planters next weekend in anticipation and also begin to prepare the soil. This year I want to experiment with a mixture of potash and fish compost renowned to be a very good source of nutrients for herbs.



From the perspective of environmental consciousness global warming is a dangerous and ominous phenomenon. But to a gentleman who delights in his garden the prospect of an earlier and earlier spring and a more protracted summer growing season is a miraculous thing. Since I define winter as, “The months during which my garden is dead or dormant,” or “The Dying Season,” I am all too eager to celebrate the shortened winter season but I cannot help but wonder what the costs will be down the road.

A longer growing season means a warmer climate and an accelerated melting of the polar ice caps. Since water is a highly reflective compound as compared with earth which, (though earth has a lower specific heat), increased coverage of the earth’s surface with water will ultimately result in cooler temperatures. We all know this will ultimately precipitate, (pardon the pun), a rebound of global cooling. Scientists and Anthropologist’s hypothesize a brief global winterization similar to that which occurred during the middle ages and which may have occurred during the Paleolithic Era. So at the most we are talking only a few hundred or thousand years of global cooling. The scenario I am most worried about in the even we experience a protracted cooling is the accelerated cooling of the earth’s core; this could spell clear and irreversible damage to life as we know it on this planet…




So while I am preparing my garden for the glorious arrival of spring… enriching the soil; selecting the plant material; designing the layout and selecting the planters to create the café ambience I want I will be thinking about the opportunity cost we pay to have a longer growing season today. Odds are we won’t have anything to worry about, at least not that any of us will ever live to see… but that does not absolve us of direct responsibility as stewards of this planet to do all we can to avoid this global permutation which can be wholly attributed to the workings of mankind…


FIN