Cheerful Curmudgeon

If you have a lawn, check out Out of fashion: Green lawns at USA Today.

My venture into natural lawn care has produced a beautiful lawn, far exceeding my expectations. Let me tell you what I have done and then relate a funny (but true) story from Wednesday evening.

I had a soil analysis performed by the University of Missouri extension and, while waiting for the results, I applied some corn glutten as a combination pre-emergent herbicide and fertilizer. See My Lawn, Naturally for details. The soil analysis told us that the dirt is fine, an unexpected pleasure, and that the only thing we need to do is add a bit of fertilizer in the late summer or early fall. I had expected at least one more round of fertilization, probably to add nitrogen, so I am delighted to save the effort and money. This does bear out the advice that I read in so many places: have your soil analyzed. Without knowing the condition of your lawn, how can you intelligently decide what treatment it needs?

We set the mower to a higher setting, up to 4 from 3. The taller grass crowds out weeds; they cannot even get started. I have read that it will be more drought tolerant, too, but this spring has been so soggy that drought has been the farthest thing from my mind. I tried setting the mower all the way up, at 5, but that was so tall that the grass was forming seed heads within a few days of mowing. Mown at 4, the lawn looks lush and green from a distance. Walking on it is kind of cool because the grass is so deep and springy.

I have been very careful with the weed-whacker, trimming the edges to the same height as the rest of the lawn. I used to be a mad man with a trimmer in my hand, gleefully slashing everything in sight down to the ground so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it again. Turns out, that is exactly the wrong thing to do. By cutting the vegetation short, the weeds grow more easily than the grass, which leads to more weed-whacking and a never-ending need for herbicides and weed-whacking all around the edges of the lawn. By simply leaving the grass as long at the edges as it is in the middle of the yard, very few weeds have gotten hold, even next to the curbs and the driveway.

Candy spent an hour, on two occasions in early April, pulling dandelions. In hindsight, I am not sure it was worthwhile but we were worried that the dandelions would get out of control. Next time they raise their yellow heads, I think we will just watch and see what happens. The grass has dealt with everything else so well that it will probably fend off most of the dandelions, too. I actually like dandelions so if I have some of them, I’ll be a happy camper. And since we don’t have any chemicals on our lawn, they may well end up in our salad bowl.

In addition to these four things (one application of fertilizer, mowing taller, weed-whacking taller, and pulling a few dandelions), we have done nothing else to the lawn except enjoy it.

On Wednesday evening, Candy and I were sitting on the patio enjoying the evening and the results of having mowed and weed-whacked. A guy came walking along the street; he was passing out fliers for lawn care service. Since we were within easy chatting distance of the curb, he stopped to chat and to try to sell his service to me.

Guy: What are you doing to take care of your lawn?

Me: Natural lawn care.

Guy: You put that down yourself?

Me: Yup. The lawn looks pretty good, doesn’t it?

Guy: Well, yeah, every lawn looks good this time of year.

Me: Do you see any weeds?

Guy: Looks silently at the lawn

Me: Why would I put anything else on a lawn that looks this good?

Guy: Continues to stare silently at the lawn

I had not realized just how well our grass can take care of itself until that moment. Here was a guy who wanted to sell us something, probably for a very reasonable price, and he clearly had nothing to offer in the face of cool, lush, green, objective evidence. As for me, I will just keep enjoying my yard and wondering why so many people around me pour so many dollars and chemicals onto the dirt outside their homes.

We have several “tufts” of tall-grass around the edge of our patio. Last year, I tried letting it go au naturel, which is a technical term meaning: I let it be and didn’t tend it at all. I didn’t like that. It looked scraggly pretty much all the time. So this year, I went back to the annual ritual of cutting down the dead stems from last year’s “crop.”

It seemed kind of absurd to me, as I chopped and bagged yesterday, that I was about to pay to have a truck haul this stuff away and then pay another truck to bring some compost to me. That’s an awful lot of gasoline and pollution (and expense) just to get these clippings back into the soil.

I think I have this problem licked. I took 12 feet of hardware wire, made a circle out of it, artfully applied a few cable ties to keep it in shape, and dumped in all five yard waste bags of the tall-grass clippings. I also threw in a couple scoops of organic lawn fertilizer, since these clippings are high in carbon but low in nitrogen. Then I tossed in this morning’s coffee grounds and a couple of sprigs of pine tree (just for flavoring). If it ever stops raining and I can mow, I’ll dump the grass clippings from the first mowing in, too. (The rest of the year, I’ll just mulch the clippings back into the lawn.)

With some judicious “stirring” of the pile, I should have some compost in June or July, without the use of trucks or gasoline.

I’ve got over 7,300 square feet of grass outside my house. Who knew? Not me, that’s for sure!

Yesterday, I picked up a bag of Concern Weed Prevention Plus from Worm’s Way in Olivette, MO. I did that because, almost a year ago, our lawn care company stopped showing up to care for our lawn. (Conveniently, they also stopped sending bills.) In between the vanishing gardener’s last visit and yesterday’s purchase, the lawn did it’s natural lawn-ish thing and I mowed as usual. We had a few more weeds by autumn but the sky did not fall and the world did not end.

Some time in late fall, I listened to a podcast on natural lawn care, featuring Paul Tukey, author of The Organic Lawn Care Manual. I liked what I heard. Tukey’s ideas jibe nicely with my ideas of how the world ought to run; little things like a lawn ought to be able to pretty much take care of itself, without the regular addition of lots of synthetic chemicals. As far as I know, darned close to 100% of the grasslands in the world got that way without man’s help. When I drive through Yellowstone and enjoy the pastures, I am quite sure that no one spread weed ‘n’ feed on them.

Tukey’s point is that you can have a gorgeous lawn by nurturing the natural eco-system in the soil. If you do that, you don’t need all of the synthetic fertilizers and pesticides because nature is really good at taking care of itself pretty much all the time. Our lawns require all the artificial chemicals because the artificial pesticides have killed off not just the pests but pretty much all of the insects and bacteria and fungi which used to live in the soil. Grass is just one part of a complex environment; it can’t live in bare dirt alone. So the choices are either artificially support the grass or rebuild the eco-system of which grass is just one component. Tukey went on to explain that, in the long run, natural lawn care is actually less expensive because the lawn needs fewer dollars of stuff dumped onto it, less watering, and less mowing. In that context, natural lawn care made a bushel of sense to me.

I borrowed a copy of The Organic Lawn Care Manual from the library and read it. Then I bought my own copy to keep. I read bunches of stuff from the University of Missouri Extension web site on natural lawn care. I learned about the benefits of soil samples and compost tea and corn gluten and clover and a dozen other goodies. I was all psyched up and ready to work magic on my lawn. There was just one problem: it was December. So I waited. My favorite pass-time. Not.

The weather finally did start to warm up, as it is wont to do, and that brought me to Worm’s Way, our local organic gardening store (and source of great beer making supplies, too). I stopped in yesterday, largely for information, and was tickled to see piles of both organic pre-emergent herbicide and organic lawn fertilizer. The clerk helpfully told me that the herbicide would treat 1,700 square feet and the fertilizer would treat 2,500 square feet. I’ve got a small-ish lawn so I bought a bag of each. I guessed that would do it for me.

Before I dumped the bag of herbicide in the drop spreader which has been mouldering on a top shelf of the garage for years, I did a little more reading. Just how was I supposed to know how to set the spreader and how much stuff I would need? The answer, doh!, was to start by measuring the yard, then set the spreader for a lighter setting than the herbicide’s instructions called for, and keep criss-crossing the yard until the appropriate amount of stuff had been distributed. That seemed much easier than trying to get the spreader set exactly right so that I would exactly run out of stuff exactly as I finished walking the yard exactly one time.

Candy and I measured our lot: 120′ x 100′ = 12,000 square feet. Whoa. That was a much bigger number  than I expected.

Then we subtracted the spaces which are not grass:

• Driveway: 1,000 sq. ft.
• Garage & porch: 861 sq. ft.
• House: 2,275 sq. ft.
• Etc.

When all was said and done, I learned that we have 7,384 sq. ft. of lawn. Believe it or not, in all the years that I have lived in homes surrounded by lawns, in all the years that I have owned lawns, this is the first time that I have known how much lawn I have to care for.

We went back to Worm’s Way. Between yesterday and today, all but three of the bags of Weed Prevention Plus had evaporated. Fortunately, I needed exactly three more bags so I bought them, hauled them home, and spread the contents on the lawn.

This post is long enough so I’ll stop for today. Look for more installments on natural lawn care as the adventure continues.

Scorpio (Oct. 24 – Nov. 21)

You will receive word today that you are eligible to win a million dollars in prizes. It will be from a magazine trying to get you to subscribe, and you’re just dumb enough to think you’ve got a chance to win. You’re a really slow learner.

July 12, 1974

I am at a grocery store in Israel, picking up a few things. At the cash register, no one bags my stuff. No one even offers me a bag. I am outraged to learn that, were I to want a bag, I would have to pay for it. Paying for bags, I am told, encourages people to reuse the bags instead of throwing them away.

July 13, 1974

Reuse grocery bags to save a few cents? I guess it makes a little sense. But I’m glad that we don’t have to do that in the United States.

August 24, 1974

I’m back in the US and have completely forgotten about the bags.

February 12, 1983

My local Safeway grocery store asks me whether I want paper or plastic bags. I choose plastic, feel virtuous, and think (briefly) about the Israeli grocery store, nine years earlier.

November 16, 2004

Our landfills are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The trees in our parks are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The ponds in our parks are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The news is full of stories about plastic grocery bags. The Israeli grocery bag concept creeps back into my consciousness (temporarily).

April 23, 2009

US House of Representatives Democrats introduce a bill “aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and curbing toxic pollution by… imposing a 5-cent tax on single-use plastic bags….” (New York Times, New bottle deposit, bag tax bills touted for combating pollution). The Israeli grocery store, from 35 years ago, comes back to mind. I am a really slow learner.

We need fewer plastic bags and fewer paper bags. We need another tax like we need holes in our heads. Here’s a better idea:

Next time you go to the store and you have your groceries put into your reusable canvas bags, ask to speak to the manager. Tell him that you want to pay less for your groceries because the store didn’t have to give any bags to you.

Why should you pay for bags which you don’t use?

This article in Slashdot about the electronic trash that we create hit home. I cannot think of a good way to paraphrase it so here is the whole thing:

Every day, Americans toss out more than 350,000 cell phones and 130,000 computers, making electronic waste the fastest-growing part of the US garbage stream. A lot of the world’s e-waste is exported to Guiyu, China, where peasants heat circuit boards over coal fires to recover lead (a 15″ computer monitor can pack up to 7 lbs. of Pb), while others use acid to burn off bits of gold. Guiyu’s willingness to deal with lead, mercury and other toxic materials generates $75 million a year for the village, but as a result. Guiyu is slowly poisoning itself with the highest level of cancer-causing dioxins in the world. The village experiences elevated rates of miscarriages, and its children suffer from an extremely high rate of lead poisoning. TIME suggests checking out recycling brokers and accredited e-stewards the next time you’re ready to toss a gizmo.

If you are one of my readers who lives in the St. Louis; Kansas City; Las Vegas; or Columbia, SC then I recommend you get in touch with your local EPC office. They demanufacture waste electronics down to recyclable components and they do it safely, right here in the US.

Regardless of where you live, check with your local city and county government. More and more of them are setting up electronic recycling centers. For instance, the St. Charles, MO county will recycle electronics for any resident. There is a nominal cost but paying a few dollars beats the heck out of wondering who’s back yard your old CRT will be dumped in.

Infoworld published 10 power-saving myths debunked. I admit that I assumed this myth was true.

Myth No. 7: Notebook batteries just wear out. There’s not much you can do to make them last longer.
Fact: Many laptops with nickel-cadmium batteries come with a battery-reconditioning utility that drains the battery fully, then brings it back to a full charge. Laptops with lithium-ion batteries aren’t afflicted with the same memory problem as those powered by NiCad batteries. However, unlike NiCad batteries, lithium batteries prefer to be only partially discharged: Running them all the way down will shorten their life span. The calibration utility for lithium batteries actually just re-calibrates the capacity measurement to reflect the loss of capacity over time; it doesn’t affect actual battery life. Battery life for either type of battery can be prolonged greatly by removing the battery when the unit is plugged into AC power. This approach is recommended if your laptop supports it and power outages are infrequent in your area.

Since my last laptop battery cost well over $100, I will certainly be pulling the battery out of the machine when it is on AC power. Since most cell phones use lithium-ion batteries, I presume that the advice about not letting them run all the way down applies to cell phones as well as to laptops.

It’s Earth Day so celebrate.

Go and get yourself a glass of clear, cool, refreshing water.

Sip and savor the cool wetness as it trickles back along your tongue.

Do your teeth feel cold, too?

Take a deep gulp.

Ahhhhh. That satisfies, doesn’t it?

Now celebrate again because you didn’t pay $0.79 for that privilege; it was free.

Now celebrate again because you didn’t toss a plastic bottle into the trash.

Now celebrate again because the glass of water you drank did not require three more glasses of water to produce and bottle.

Now celebrate again because the glass of water came to you without the use of diesel fuel to drive a truck.

What if you could save money and do good by just changing a lightbulb? You can.

Compact fluorescents emit the same light as classic incandescents but use 75% or 80% less electricity.

What that means is that if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.

That is from How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change the World? One. And You’re Looking At It. on FastCompany.com.

We have several of these compact flourescent lightbulbs (CFL) in our house and they… well… they just work: no fuss, no muss. Honestly, sitting here in my chair and typing this, I cannot remember where we put them.

Next time you are at the store, buy one of these things. It’s a no brainer. The bulb will cost you less than $3 and the electricity savings will pay for it in about five months. Take it home and stick it in a light socket. Then forget about it for several years. The next time one of your regular lightbulbs burns out, try to remember where you put the CFL. Then consider whether you want to put an old-fashioned lightbulb back in, or switch another light to a CFL.

The whooping crane has been in serious trouble for a long, long time. The situation is so dire that several groups of people, including the Whooping Crane Eastern Parntership, have taken to hand raising them and teaching them to migrate by leading them with ultralight aircraft. Yes… you read that right. These folks fly ultralight airplanes to teach the birds how to migrate.

Guess what: it worked. First Wild Whooping Crane Chicks Hatch in the Midwest in 100 Years.