Sweet Vitriol

Pittsburgh May Market — Eco-Friendly Somehow

by Luminiferous

I went to the May Market yesterday. It was more useful than, say, the PA State Farm Show, but not the most fantastic thing I’ve ever seen.

There were dozens upon dozens of large white tents set up across the Phipps Garden Center’s rolling lawn, mostly representing local suburban gardening clubs, each selling their plants, vegetables, herbs, trees and bushes. There were also a few odd companies hawking garden paraphernalia — things that look like stones but are actually speakers, things that look like stones but are actually drainage systems, things that look like stones but are actually very special kinds of stones which you should pay hundreds of dollars for. Construction Junction had a tent too, as well as a couple people selling various sorts of garden junk — wire twisted up to look like giant bugs, a slightly larger than life-size mossy statue of a golfer, and of course garden gnomes, garden cats, and garden saints.

In general, everything was overpriced. Some guy wanted ten bucks for a single shoot of bloodroot — a native plant I could find for free anywhere. People were selling tiny dogwood trees for nearly $100. And of course tropical plants abounded. Some lady tried to push a hibiscus bush on me for half-price because they were closing up their tent. When I found out that I would have to take it inside every winter, I balked. That prospect sounded way too much like work to me. And I don’t think we’d even have a spot for it indoors anyway.

The event planners decided to have the May Market on a rainy weekend outdoors in a hilly spot covered in mostly grass, which means that after a hundred people trampled the grass down, it was a muddy mess. I had to occasionally carry my friend, Olga, around, who wore cloth high-heels, assuming that an high-class event at the Phipps Garden Center would not actually be Woodstock ‘94.

The theme of the show was “An Eco-Friendly Garden Fair.” The thing is: I have no idea what was supposed to be so eco-friendly about a bunch of people loading up plants into trucks and driving them from the suburbs into the city, only to load them up a couple days later and drive them all back to the suburbs again. I’m sorry ladies, but your geraniums will not save the planet. They’re still the same geraniums they were five years ago before you thought that appearing eco-friendly would be clever.

I suppose keeping a vegetable garden is eco-friendly, but I noticed fewer than five tents which featured vegetables. The rest of it was mostly tropical plants, annuals, and shrubs, most of which are invasive anyway.

If I weren’t so cheap, I would have bought a sundial on a pedestal for $75. Instead, I walked out of there with a pot of Hot & Spicy Oregano (O. vulgare ‘Hot & Spicy’) for three bucks. I noticed it on some guy’s table, and having never heard of that particular variety of oregano before, he let me taste a sample. It in fact tastes like oregano, but also hot and spicy — totally worth having.

Am I glad I went? Sure. I wouldn’t have this Hot & Spicy oregano if I had stayed home. Was it a ridiculous greenwashed show of empty “environmentalism?” Yup. You’ll need more than a concrete Saint Jerome and some overpriced marigolds to fix our dirty water and our broken atmosphere. From the muddy lawn to the utter lack of effort towards changing anything they’ve been doing for the past fifty years in regards to our environment, the entire May Market was a pink flowery celebration of a gross lack of planning ahead.

Posted by Luminiferous on May 19th, 2008 filed in 'Green' living, Gardening