Interesting Information and Turkey Tracks:  June 1, 2014

Weed/lawn Chemicals

Here’s a really lovely column from my neighbor Marina Schauffler on using lawn chemicals and weed killers.  This column appeared in the Maine Sunday Telegram today.

http://www.pressherald.com/life/Sea_change__Create_a_thriving_backyard_community_.html

Here’s an attempt to paste the column–not always easy with the ipad…

Sea Change: Create a thriving backyard community
See your yard as habitat, not lawn.
By Marina Schauffler

Landscape planners encourage us to visualize the area around our homes in terms of rooms that act as external living spaces. If we extend this idea, going beyond visions of upscale patios with grill stations, we can see our yards as habitats that help supply what we need to thrive: food, water, community and beauty.

Consider starting with “edible landscaping” – plants that provide fruits, blooms, roots and greens to enjoy through the growing season. Foraging opportunities include plants that typically have only decorative use – like daylilies and wild beach rose. Ample guidance exists for those seeking to create edible yards, thanks to the tireless efforts of Scarborough’s Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International (kgi.org), and book authors like Rosalind Creasy and Lee Reich.

To generate abundant food, your backyard habitat will need consistent water. Gutters and rain barrels can capture downpours and help redirect water to plants during dry spells. Mulching with materials like shredded leaves or composted wood chips can help the soil hold moisture, and reduce the number of uninvited plants that take up residence. Mulching also helps feed the staggering number of microorganisms that share in the habitat underfoot: one square yard of healthy soil can contain more than a billion bacteria, fungi, nematodes, earthworms and other creatures reliant on organic matter. To keep them happy, factor a “compost room” into your yard design if you can, or sign up for a service like Garbage to Garden that takes away food scraps and delivers finished compost.

Many species that live within backyard habitats contribute to the health of the whole in ways we’re only beginning to understand. It helps, therefore, to approach yard management with humility – striving to observe carefully, learn continually and consider the essential needs of other creatures. In her book “Suburban Safari,” South Portland writer Hannah Holmes characterizes this as a move from “biological boss” to “benevolent dictator.”

In an increasingly developed and polluted world, our yards need to be a safe haven. Consider, for example, a pair of warblers that takes up residence in a nearby bush. They’ve migrated thousands of miles, possibly from wintering grounds compromised by deforestation. That journey, made more challenging by light pollution, may have been through areas of drought where food and water were scarce. Their grassy nest is interwoven with ubiquitous plastic trash. Will the yard they rely on for insects be doused with toxic lawn-care  products?

If we take a communal view of our yards and acknowledge the needs of all the resident creatures, applying pesticides becomes a short-sighted and untenable choice. By definition, habitats are places that foster life, so deliberately introducing a far-reaching agent of death produces a fundamental conflict. E.B. White described this paradox in his 1949 poem “Pasture Management” (see sidebar) about the herbicide 2,4-D. Still a common ingredient in lawn-care products (with more than 40 million pounds applied annually in the US), 2, 4-D is linked in numerous studies to groundwater contamination, wildlife die-offs and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

As White demonstrates, taking a more benevolent view of our fellow species moves us beyond the spray-bottle illusion that we can eliminate unwanted “pests.” When we see ourselves as part of an interdependent community of organisms, we gain confidence that imbalances will rectify themselves if we foster the health and resilience of the whole. That principle applies in our yards, and in our watersheds – where our backyard actions have impacts far downstream.

PASTURE MANAGEMENT

E. B. White

Down below the pasture pond,
O’er the lovely lea,
I went spraying bushes
With 2,4-D.

(For young, susceptible annual weeds,
apply one to two pints per acre.)

I had read my bulletins,
I was in the know
The two young heifers
Came and watched the show.

(Along ditches and fence rows, use 2,4-D when weeds
are in a succulent stage. Won’t harm livestock.)

Rank grew the pasture weeds,
The thistle and the bay;
A quiet, still morning,
A good time to spray.

(Control weeds the easy way with Agricultural Weed-No-More –
not by chemical burn but by hormone action.)

Suddenly I looked and saw
What my spray had found:
The wild, shy strawberry
Was everywhere around.

(An alkyl ester of 2,4-D is produced by
reacting alcohol with the raw 2,4-D acid.
The result is an oily liquid that sticks to weed leaves.)

What sort of madness
Little man is this?
What sort of answer to
The wild berry’s kiss?

(Any 3- or 4-gallon garden pump-up sprayer
can be used, after the standard nozzle
has been replaced with a new precision nozzle.)

It seemed to me incredible
That I’d begun the day
By rendering inedible
A meal that came my way.
All across the pasture in
The strip I’d completed
Lay wild, ripe berries
With hormones treated.

(The booklet gives you the complete story.)

I stared at the heifers,
An idiot child;
I stared at the berries
That I had defiled
I stared at the lambkill,
The juniper and bay.
I walked home slowly
And put my pump away.
Weed-no-more, my lady,
O weed no more today.
(Available in quarts, l-gallon and 5-gallon cans, and 55-gallon drums).

— E.B. White, “Poems & Sketches of E.B. White”

A BETTER BACKYARD HABITAT

1. Learn more about ecological practices to foster healthy lawns and gardens at sites like
http://www.yardscaping.org
and
http://www.cascobay.org/bayscaping
Visit the yardscaping demonstration garden along the Back Cove in Portland.
2. Think soil health before lawn care. Take a soil sample – kits are available through county Cooperative Extension offices – and build organic matter (leave grass clippings on the lawn and top-dress each season with a quarter-inch of fine compost).
3. Avoid a summer buzz cut: Mow at a height of 3 inches since taller grass withstands drought better and helps shade weed seeds.
4. Create diversity: Consider replacing some of your turf with native plants, flowering shrubs and groundcovers.
5. Go native: Avoid botanical thugs like purple loosestrife, burning bush and Asiatic bittersweet. Read “Gardening to Conserve Maine’s Native Landscape” at http://www.umaine.edu/publications/2500e/
6. Look online to find the Material Safety Data Sheet for any substance you (or your lawn-care firm) might apply. For reference, read “The Organic Lawn Care Manual” by former Maine resident and Safe Lawns founder Paul Tukey.

Marina Schauffler, Ph.D., is a writer and environmental consultant who runs Natural Choices (naturalchoices.com). She is also a volunteer Master Gardener.