The author, John Marek, is a writer and executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.
I arrived home one day last week to find an IMPORTANT, OFFICIAL BUSINESS letter from the North Carolina Department of Agriculture in my mailbox. I knew it was IMPORTANT and OFFICIAL BUSINESS because those words were printed on it in bold type. As I retrieved my pocket knife and slit open the envelope, I wondered aloud, as I do whenever I get an official notification from a government agency, “Oh, what fresh hell is this?”
I unfolded the three sheets of paper contained within, wondering what it could possibly be about. I work in my church’s community garden; perhaps we had failed to get some required permit or registration? Vegetables from the garden are donated to the local food bank; maybe that’s a violation? As I read down through the first paragraph, though, I learned that the state’s interest in my agricultural exploits had nothing to do with the church garden and was, in fact, in response to an online purchase I had made a couple of years earlier.
According to the letter, records indicated I owned a Pixwell Gooseberry and possession of that plant was prohibited under North Carolina law. The other two pages were a copy of the statute I had violated. The letter provided a contact name and phone number for my regional plant pest specialist and suggested I call her as soon as possible.
Hey, my name is John Marek, and rumor has it that you are my regional plant pest specialist.
Yep, that’s me. Could you spell that name?
M—A—R—E—K (pause) J—O …
Okay, got it. Yeah, it says here that you purchased a Pixwell Gooseberry from Stark Brothers Nursery in 2017.
Uh … yes.
Were you aware that possession of gooseberry and currant plants is illegal in North Carolina?
Uh, clearly not.
Well, we’re going to let it go this time because Stark should not have sold it to you, even if you tried to order it. But we’re going to need you to dig that plant up immediately, double bag it, and take it to your nearest landfill for disposal.
Uh … okay … sure.
This is very important. You must do it immediately, or you could face a fine of up to $500.
Now, the thing I didn’t mention to her, for obvious reasons, is that the gooseberry plant I bought from Stark was a replacement for an existing gooseberry that had died the previous winter. I actually had FIVE gooseberry plants, which I suppose made me a gooseberry kingpin. I acquired the original plants back before the prohibition was in place based on an article I read about berries that grow in the shade. The truth is that they never performed well and produced only a handful of berries annually. Further, they are not an especially attractive plant, and I was thinking about moving them to a less conspicuous location anyway.
In doing a bit of research on the subject, I learned that the Department of Agriculture’s effort is well-intentioned but ultimately pointless. Native gooseberries and currants are alternate hosts for a fungus called white pine blister rust. This disease infects immature pine trees and causes them to die. In some parts of the state where foresters regularly plant white pine trees, wild Appalachian currants growing close to the saplings can spread the disease and wipe out the lot. However, there is no evidence that modern cultivars spread or harbor this disease, and it is not even an issue in the part of the state where I live, as pine trees are not commercially grown here.
Nonetheless, I dutifully went out the next day and dug up all five plants. Gooseberry stems, for the uninitiated, have long, sharp thorns which easily poke through garden gloves, so double-bagging them was quite a chore and a spectacle. Confident that I had done all I could to preserve North Carolina’s pine forests, I considered the matter closed.
Then, a day later, I got an email from Stark Brothers Nursery. They apologized for shipping me an illegal plant, refunded the original purchase price, AND gave me a coupon for $20 off my next order. I’d call that pretty good customer service, right there. Of course, they are aware of the fact I have a big hole (five, actually) in my backyard I will need to fill and surmise, correctly, that I will replace the gooseberries with some sort of useful, edible plant. I was thinking about blackberries; wonder if all that hemp nearby will affect those?