This week, we’re thrilled to share a missive from farmer, writer, and artist Susanna Byrd. A regular Edible Blue Ridge contributor, Susanna also owns and operates Spring Creek Blooms near Crozet. Today she shares her reflections on the importance of buying locally-grown flowers for the upcoming holiday. You can learn more about her farm here.
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Once, I wore a full body plastic suit to enter an Ecuadorian rose facility
On Tuesday it rained and rained. Water collected in the driveway and ran in a small stream down our front path. It pooled and gargled through our front yard, traveled along the eastern edge of my main flower field, cut through a few of the lowest beds, and carried on down, following the low crease of the meadow.
It streamed into the woods and fell into a spring-fed, fern-lined creek bed. After a short traverse through a bottomland meadow, the water found its home in Spring Creek.
The namesake of my farm is a creek at the back of the property that feeds directly into Lake Albemarle, a popular fishing lake home to river otters, blue and green herons, osprey, belted kingfishers, turtles, dragonflies and the occasional bald eagle.
It is on floody days like Tuesday that I'm grateful I’ve chosen to manage my flower fields without synthetic fertilizers or chemical pesticides and herbicides. One can see, quite viscerally, how the water that runs right through my fields would carry any residues from here right into an important water reservoir.
As I’m sure many of you know, runoff of agricultural fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides causes harm to downstream communities.
In Ecuador, which exports about 400 million roses to the United States each year, pesticide use is rampant in industrial flower operations, resulting in contamination of waterways as well as worker health issues. As a student in Ecuador in 2009, I once had the opportunity to visit an industrial rose operation. Our whole group was given yellow, full-body plastic suits to wear before entering the facility, a sign to me that exposure was of clear concern.
A 2007 study by the International Labor Rights Fund reported that Flower companies in Ecuador use 30 different pesticides. In Colombia, the number one exporter of roses to the U.S., 20% of the pesticides used are not legal in the U.S.
Even so, in the three weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, 30 cargo jets arrive daily in the U.S. from Colombia, carrying more than 1 million roses each.
Rainy days and flooding are inevitable in this world, but contamination from agricultural runoff doesn't have to be.
I believe how flowers are grown matters deeply, and that the story behind the flowers contributes greatly to the depth of joy and meaning they bring to our lives.
Of course, my farm is tiny compared to the Colombian and Ecuadorian flower industries, but every drop counts towards the proverbial flood. Organizations like the Association for Specialty Cut Flower Growers and Rooted Farmers are reporting a significant increase in small-scale flower farms around the country, and are finding ways to reach customers who care about how their flowers are grown.
You are a part of this, too! As you think ahead to Valentine's Day, know that there are some alternative, pesticide and runoff-free options, such as a weekly bouquet subscription, Virginia-grown tulips from Harmony Harvest Farm and Irvington Spring Farm, and anemone bouquets from local farms across the region.
Thank you for reading and don't forget to look to the flowers for courage.
- Susanna Byrd
EVENTS
Have an event you’d like us to share? Email: info@edibleblueridge.com
2.10 The Wine Guild Galentine’s Dance Party - Charlottesville
2.12 Wine & Chocolate Pairing - Staunton
2.13 Cooking For Two - Charlottesville
2.14 Valentine’s Day Mini Market at Golden Cactus - Roanoke
2.17 Fruit Pruning Workshop at Edible Landscaping - Afton
2.16-2.18 Home & Garden Show - Roanoke
2.23-2.24 Winter Wine Weekend - Harrisonburg
MORE TO CHEW ON
🌱The USDA has updated its Plant Hardiness Zone Map 🌱 - how does this relate to climate change? - from Civil Eats
Would you give your valentine a vegetable bouquet? 🍆🥕 - EATER
You can find Italy’s newest vineyard 🍇...on top of an airport??? - Food & Wine reports
WHAT WE’RE COOKING
We love snacks and we’ll take any excuse to make and enjoy them. This weekend we’re cooking up some vegetarian apps to bring to a Super Bowl party. Try out our Buffalo Cauliflower Wings recipe (make sure to shop small and use a local hot sauce!) or our Spinach Artichoke Dip. Although it’s February, local farms grow greens year round in their hoop houses and greenhouses. Be on the look out for fresh spinach at your local farmers market this weekend.
For Valentine’s day, why not forgo the candied hearts and bake your special someone(s) some Linzer Cookies?
POEM OF THE WEEK
Heart Valve by Elizabeth Arnold They told me there’d be pain so when I felt it, sitting at my beat-up farm desk that looks out glass doors onto the browning garden—plain sparrows bathing in the cube-shaped fountain so violently they drain it, the white-throats with their wobbly two-note song on the long way south still, and our dogs out like lights and almost falling off their chairs freed of the real-time for awhile as time began for me to swell, slow down, carry me out of all this almost to a where about as strong a lure as love.
Source: Poetry (July/August 2010)
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