The real dirt
How to gardening book addresses gender divide
June 3, 2011
Sonia Day
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
She hates lawns and power tools. He loves both.
Flowers are her favourite things to grow. He wants to replace them with vegetables.
She weeds by hand. He lusts after a big, noisy weed whacker.
His favourite task is pruning. She wishes he wouldn’t keep hacking at her beloved shrubs...
For proof that men and women live on different planets, look no further than a backyard. What starts out as cosy togetherness after a couple buys a home can quickly degenerate into shouting matches over who does what in the landscaping department.
Famous gardeners like Vita Sackville West and her husband Harold Nicolson found that the only solution — short of divorce — was rigid division of responsibilities. Thus Sackville West picked the plants at their celebrated country pad, Sissinghurst. Nicolson simply “advised” on shrubs and trees. And smart guy, he kept his mouth shut when Vita bought something that he didn’t like.
The radical — and often hilarious — differences in how women and men view the great green world seldom get a second glance in gardening books. Instead, authors tend to presume that, male or female, we gardeners are all basically alike. But we aren’t. Not by a long shot. That’s why a new Canadian book called No Guff Vegetable Gardening caught my eye.
The authors, Donna Balzer and Steven Biggs aren’t married to one another and even live in different cities. She’s gardening columnist for the Calgary Herald. He runs the website VegetableGardenCoach.com and an e-zine called Homegrown in Toronto. Yet they are pointedly accurate about the gender differences that can trigger fist fights out there among the radishes and rutabagas — and as a result, this is a funny and entertaining book.
Balzer is against using a rototiller, for instance, to get her vegetable plot ready for planting, but Biggs likes them. He prefers to plant veggies in rows. She takes a more scattered approach, mixing them with flowers. Mapping out what will go where is essential, too, for Balzer. But Biggs can’t be bothered to do that. He just puts his seeds in where the mood strikes him. Their opposing viewpoints are useful for beginner gardeners of both sexes who wonder where to start. They also explain how to distinguish “guff” (that is silly ideas) from genuinely useful advice.
I found this approach refreshing because unlike many how-to gardening books, the pair don’t take themselves — or the business of growing things — -too seriously.
Balzer and Biggs self-published their large, colourful paperback after being turned down by publishers who disliked both the editorial style and the look. The design is certainly too busy (you don’t know what to read first) but there’s lots of good solid information, the charts are excellent and it’s the most imaginative of a whole plotful of new veggie gardening books that have sprouted this spring.
No Guff Vegetable Gardening costs $24.95. It’s available at several stores in the GTA or can be ordered online. Go to www.gardencoacheschat.com for details. An electronic version costs $10.
soniaday.com