Neighbors and poison use

[iris lilies]

Regarding Roundup... Just so you know, I am NOT a gardner ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...3c0_story.html

Yea, I know all this. So?

[catherine]

I love the way the adjective “ toxic” is de rigeur in usage about chemicals used as pesticides “ Harsh” is another one.

Whenever we have these discussions in our community garden I ask for the exact compounds to be defined that are both “toxic “” harsh “ and no one one has ever able to come up with the compounds except for of course Roundup which is everyone’s whipping boy.

I will never forget the gardener who I actually like very much who insisted on using a non-commercial chemical mix on the patio at the community garden. It’s a mix of salt and vinegar.


She regularly denigrated the idea of “harsh “chemicals. Yeah I don’t know what salt and vinegar is but whatever. She was the same one who spoke of ridding a particular infestation of insect in her house by using the local bug eradication guys. As though she doesn’t understand I can’t chemical use against an insect has more likelihood to affect a human. And I suppose it depends on how with use.


And I will say this because I admit sometimes I’m wrong, the harsh chemical salt and vinegar does actually control of those weeds between the brick patio.

Oh but here is what really pisses me off—I came up to the community garden one day last year and found the carpenter bee holes in our pergola had been filled. A group of little Do-Gooders got together to rid the community garden of the colony of carpenter bees that had been there longer than they had. Really pissed me off. I like carpenter bees and I like that colony, I think they are very funny.

When I am queen of community gardens nationwide there will be carpenter bees and Roundup, by god!

I've found that it's hard to get people to agree on a) food practices and b) gardening practices. Strong opinions are usually involved in any case. I'm ready to give up my post as Project Leader of the local community hall garden because it was frustrating in Year 1 to have everything second-guessed by people who "knew better."

I am on your side with the carpenter bees--and I don't think you're going to be responsible for the end of the world by using a little Round Up early in the season, but I have to say, that topic is a hot button between DH and I. Our gardening practices are almost diametrically opposed. I am vigorously no-till; last year he brought in a guy with a big John Deere to till "his" 15 x 15 garden bed. It took the guy 30 seconds. I use organic fertilizers: there isn't a synthetic fertilizer that he doesn't like. We fought every year until we realized that separate beds (garden beds, that is) were going to save our marriage.

And then there's my neighbors--who shave the lawn down to the wood, and remove every bit of vegetation lining the shore. I don't even try to change minds, because almost all of them practically grew up in this neighborhood. I've decided not to fight that battle.

[iris lilies]

I recently read Michael Pollan's book Second Nature on gardening with nature. If I understood it correctly, "native" at the time this book was written means those plants that would have been growing in a region at the time that immigrants moved in across the country. One thing he said I found interesting is that "weeds" as we know them today did not exist before the land was disturbed. Plants like dandelions were brought over as sustenance and flourished.

By “immigrants” I suppose Pollen means the western white man, as though the farming communities a thousand years prior didn’t disturb the earth. The Cahokia Indians had a population bigger than London at the time they co-existed, so they were feeding a lot of people from their fields of grain.

[iris lilies]

Myn brother-in-law was one of the pioneer researchers in No Till . He’s a PhD researcher at an Aggie college and he also does hands-on work in running multiple farms he owns.

The No Till movement is important for large scale agriculture. I don’t see how it makes much difference for tiny gardens though.

That said, I don’t “till “ exactly because I grow perennials. When I am making a new bed I till in compost/organic matter. I’m making a new big bed right now for lilies in Hermann. Certainly we are tilling some of it, but because I need deep bed preparation I’m out there with a shovel turning it over with a shovel. Tillers only address the top 6”-8”. DH who is the vegetable Meister did shovel tilling for decades before he finally got a machine tiller. So yeah, he tills his bed every year.

As for your husband’s use of chemical fertilizer: You could mention to him that I win major plant competitions that depend on high quality soil and not so much infusion of chemical fertilizers. Granted, I do use a slow release granular some years when I think about it for the lilies, but the thing they really respond to is fresh soil with organic matter, they love compost and they adore manure.

Once I used Miracle Grow as a vitamin shot in the arm for a group of lillies that were chlorotic. Yes they respond to that, but only briefly.

[catherine]

You and your family definitely have a lot of farm-cred, and even when I don't always align with the way you do things, I highly respect it.

I know that Miracle-Gro isn't evil--I have used it when I see that a shot of nitrogen is badly needed quickly, but that's about it.

As a novice in the practicalities of the plant world, I have to say I am in love with soil. Before my first permaculture class I read Tobey Hemenway's Gaia's Garden and the way he wrote about the life in the soil just hooked me. I'm far from a scientist--the closest I get to considering myself a scientist is when I have to tally data from a bunch of interviews, but I can't get over the biology that exists in what most people consider "dirt." I love adding compost to it, and I turn it over on an "as-needed" basis. My shyness and reluctance to impose myself on human beings extends to micro-beings.. I just don't want to bother them if I can help it.

[iris lilies]

You and your family definitely have a lot of farm-cred, and even when I don't always align with the way you do things, I highly respect it.

I know that Miracle-Gro isn't evil--I have used it when I see that a shot of nitrogen is badly needed quickly, but that's about it.

As a novice in the practicalities of the plant world, I have to say I am in love with soil. Before my first permaculture class I read Tobey Hemenway's Gaia's Garden and the way he wrote about the life in the soil just hooked me. I'm far from a scientist--the closest I get to considering myself a scientist is when I have to tally data from a bunch of interviews, but I can't get over the biology that exists in what most people consider "dirt." I love adding compost to it, and I turn it over on an "as-needed" basis. My shyness and reluctance to impose myself on human beings extends to micro-beings.. I just don't want to bother them if I can help it.

Has the movement to leave garden debris thru winter reached your world?

there’s a name for it but I can’t think what the name is. It’s a movement about never cleaning up your annuals and perennial stalks and flower heads, leaves, etc. leaving it all as debris in your garden. That provides habitat for bugs.


This year I did that because it’s very handy to not have to clean it up – ha ha. If any of my neighbors mention my messy garden I’m going to tell them about this new movement.


Meanwhile, I poked my friend who is organic only gardener about this new movement and she was horrified. She was very much a Nazi dictator in our community garden about cleaning up debris From dead plants because that stuff provides habitat for pest and disease. And I tell her yes, that is the idea, provide a habitat for those pests! It is The New Way to be Earth Friendly.

And she can’t grok it.

I’m glad I don’t have to be earth friendly in everything that I do, It would be exhausting.

[herbgeek]

It’s a movement about never cleaning up your annuals and perennial stalks and flower heads, leaves, etc. leaving it all as debris in your garden. That provides habitat for bugs.

I do this. I love when my laziness tendencies coincide with trendiness.

I used to do the fall rake (because Mom always did) but I always had to do a spring rake too. So it wasn't saving me any work. So now the perennials get the protection of the leaves, and yes its good for overwintering the beneficial bugs etc. And I get to cut my work in half.

[catherine]

I'm also in the "leave it alone" club, for the reasons you mention. I'm glad that a) the neighbors aren't here in the winter to complain, and b) it's all covered with snow most of the time anyway.

I don't know the name for it either--I didn't know it had a name!

[GeorgeParker]

Ref no till: A method sort of halfway between has been around for a long time. Soil aeration loosens the soil by poking holes in it or by sticking a tube into the soil to pull out cylindrical chunks. There are various ways to do it including using a garden fork to poke holes. https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/gar...d-aerating.htm Soil aeration is good when you don't want to disturb plant or tree roots or when erosion is a problem because it leaves grass and other cover crops intact and will miss most of the roots.

Of course the real secret is don't walk on your planting surface. That alone will eliminate a lot of soil compaction.

[nswef]

I leave a good bit of debris in the beds. I haven't noticed a problem. We always have corn husks to remove in the spring...so that's a good time to clean the bed. Rather hopeless in the fall.