Sustainable Gardening Blog

Ready or not, the biggest gardening task of the year is upon me - the spreading of 7+ cubic yards of leafmold mulch.  Here’s what it looks like just off the truck, delivered this morning by my city’s public works crew.  (And can I say that the near-severing of my power lines by the raising and lowering of the truck bed was harrowing.  The memory of that same mechanism knocking an air conditioner out of its window and onto my living room floor is still fresh, so there’s some justification for my less-than-total faith in these public servants.)

Anyway, notice that some of the pile encroaches on my neighbor’s driveway?  That’s why the goal here is to get the whole pile moved ASAP, which means hiring help to move it downhill (and down steps) to the backyard.  I stirred up quite a fuss over on GardenRant recently by admitting to hiring what I called "immigrant laborers" but guess what - I’m doing it again.  True, some gardening professionals insist I should be hiring only professionals to haul mulch, but $10 an hour is what’s budgeted for the job and it’s either that or risk my own back doing the job.  Sorry!

One more thing.  This time of year - every single year - there are the same questions on all the gardening-related Yahoo groups about mulch - which kinds are best, is hardwood okay, does the city’s leafmold have weeds, and on and on.  But I hesitate to just post this link in answer to all those questions because it seems almost self-promotional but really, that’s why I compiled all that information in the first place, so let’s use it. 

Hey, I know.  I’ll tell them to visit this link to the very same information on the DC Urban Gardener site.  No harm promoting that, right?

 Here’s Organic Gardening editor Scott Meyer in his April 2008 column, titled "High on Grass":

I’m not declaring a War on Lawns.  I have a lawn, and I live in the suburbs, where the most hard-core grass growers congregate.  I don’t even want to get rid of my lawn, because grass is the most reliable and easiest-to-maintain (yes, I mean easiest) groundcover for large sunny areas. Lawns are also the ideal setting for baseball, soccer, tag, and other games that break out where kids gather.  And in the case of my lawn, the clover and onion grass that spring up amid the turfgrass feed fast-growing (and fat-growing) baby bunnies spring to fall. [Bolding added.]

I am, however, advocating an intervention. 

He goes on to enthusiastically endorse the SafeLawns.org campaign, saying you don’t even have to write a check to help.  "You just have to quit using the chemicals.  Go cold turkey."

Well said, Scott!  Now when I tell people that lawns CAN be low-maintenance - if grown organically - and I get the inevitable look, I’ll just quote you.

What’s New

• Growing food is all over the news, as seen in this summary.
• Are we unintentionally doping our plants every time we water them? Check out this report about PharmaWater.
• The New Yorker challenges simple carbon-footprint-per-mile calculations.
• Hey, who defines what’s a "sustainable plant," anyway?  The nursery folks weigh in.
• Shearing roses works?  Radical notion, but check it out.
• How do the candidates compare on green issues?
• And check out the cool Sunflower Project.

On the Blogs

• When Good People Use Roundup laments how hard it is to be strictly anything. It asks: In these particular situations, what else would work?
• My first ever (blush) soil test is the story of the test, the results, and the question: Can I still brag about my soil?
• There were two meaty dissections of native plant ideology on GardenRant.  First Michael Pollan confirmed that he’s still Against Nativism. Then Amy Stewart got sucked into the debate, asking if a grove of redwoods is really the best use of her tiny yard, and a lively discussion ensued.
• Yet another reason to use compost is its side effect of sequestering carbon.
• Confused about invasive plants?  Ask THIS guy to figure it all out - John Peter Thompson

What’s New on Sustainable-Gardening

• What Carries a Garden extols the virtues of the lowliest of all garden "tools" - containers for hauling.

• Soil Tests are EASY, so why don’t we use them? Even doing them the right way is easy.

• Footwear in the Garden covers what I really wear, and what different choices in footwear other gardeners make, however inexplicably.

In My Garden

• Virgin veggie-grower vows to do better next year recounts the seed-choosing dilemma, and how on earth to get them in the ground with the right amount of soil on top and my back intact.

My So-Called Second Career

• The coaching biz is HOT, thanks to a wave of publicity in the Associated Press, Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek and the Washington Post.  Maybe this doing-what-you-love thing could actually work.
• I’m shocked to report that I’m doing a bit of public speaking.  It began with talks to college writing students about "Writing and Publishing on the Web" and has morphed into a full with-digital projection show given at DC’s public libraries.  Coming soon - taking it professional through the DC Historical Society’s Writer Series.  Gulp.

 See the full version, with more photos and off-topic wanderings, right here.

Responses to GardenRant reviews of The Truth about Organic Gardening revealed very different attitudes toward Round-up - not just from our commenters but even between Elizabeth and myself.  Most of us agree it SHOULD be avoided but then there are situations where we ask:  "What’s the better alternative?" and no answer is forthcoming.

In the "It Could Be Worse" Camp

Here’s what Jeff Gillman has to say about Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the top-selling herbicide in the world, Roundup (made by the company we all love to hate - Monsanto).

After declaring that hand-weeding is always the best choice for the gardener and assuring readers that he’s NOT be a fan of synthetic herbicides,  Gillman writes that "Glyphosphate and glufosinate ammonium are probably the safest herbicides to use when preparing ground for planting because of their ability to kill most weeds while maintaining a short life in the soil."  They’re "relatively safe for humans and the environment if they’re used in accordance with their labeled instructions," though under "some easily conceivable misapplication scenarios, Roundup could have deleterious effects on the environment," especially to frogs, and that’s mainly because of the inactive ingredients (soaps and oils) that the glyphosate is mixed with.

Gillman goes on to explain the new rating system called the Environmental Impact Quotient (which assesses risk to farm workers, home consumers, and the environment) and urges their inclusion on all labels.  Here’s what surprised me:  The EIQ of Roundup is only 15.3 (on a scale of 1 to 100), compared to, say, organic horticultural oil, which has an EIQ of 27.5 because it can hurt beneficial insects and plants.

To Prepare for a Meadow

The earth-huggers at the American Horticultural Society first tried creating a meadow organically but ultimately prepared the site by using Roundup.  The road to Roundup included first  applying for permission from the county to do a controlled burn, a request that was turned down.  Next, they tried preparing the meadow by tilling, but that only unearthed decades of pokeweed seeds.  Finally, they used Roundup under carefully monitored conditions - no chance of rain, etc. 

Gilman notes the exact same problem with tilling, adding that it also can cause erosion and make the ground susceptible to compaction. "So why not apply glyphosate and allow the weeds you’ve killed to work as mulch?"  But others disagree and suggest instead that that black plastic is the best way to clear land of vegetation.  Ah, but that method kills all the beneficial critters in the soil, though only for one season, I suppose (they’ll return with the application of organic matter).  I remember hearing soil food web guru Jeff Lowenfels (author of Teaming with Microbes) declare his hatred for plastic because it destroys the soil-food web but wonder what he’d recommend instead.  Roundup? 

To Remove Invasive Plants

Another Roundup-related controversy arises from its widespread use to remove invasive plants.  But even in the service of that universally accepted good cause, its use is criticized.  Faith Campbell of the Nature Conservancy, for one, gets slammed for using it in the removal of invasive plants, despite her standing as a "rabid environmentalist" (and I SURE wish I remembered where I saw that characterization).

To Remove Hard-to-Get-To Plants

Cass Turnbull recommends it when you can’t dig something out - maybe because it’s in a rockery or has its roots entwined in a plant you don’t want to kill.  She keeps small bottle of paste+brush containing Roundup in her pruning bag when she works.

Yours Truly

I confess to a lack of purity in many things, including my adherence to strict organic practices.  So when I discovered poison ivy coming up from beneath layers of other groundcovers, I squirted its leaves with the systematic herbicide that does the job.  I think I’ve finally tackled the poison ivy population on my property but this season I plan to go after another hard-to-get menace - the creeping euonymus at the base of my big ole white oak.   If there’s some other way of getting rid of it without endangering the tree and the other plants it’s entwined with, I’d love to hear it.

How Roundup Works

According to sources I trust, it does NOT poison the soil.  It’s a systemic, which means it moves from the leaves you’ve just sprayed throughout that one plant and kills it.   Nearby plants are not affected unless your aim is really bad, or it’s a windy day - and just DON’T DO THAT. 

More Don’ts

Also don’t get it anywhere near water, because it IS toxic to aquatic critters.  And using it regularly to kill routine weeds?  Ugh.  Why not prevent weeds and when they grow despite your best mulching, just use a little muscle? 

There’s a good summary of what’s known (and hated) about Roundup and its maker here on Wikipedia.

 Why, in my 23 years gardening in one place have I never had the soil tested?  Let me count the reasons (excuses?  You tell me.)

• It’s mostly undisturbed soil.
• Everything seems to grow well here.
• I’ve never grown food.

Well, how’d I do?  Think they’ll take away my Master Gardener certification for admitting to never testing my soil?  Lucky for me, the DC Master Gardener program grants permanent certification (a situation they’ve finally corrected) so that ain’t gonna happen.  (But why DID they grant permanent certification, rather than require community service hours every year?  Because it’s too much work to keep records - and if that seems incredible, here’s my full rant about all that.)
 

But back to the soil.  What’s changed is that I’ll be growing food this season and have been utterly convinced by my DC Urban Gardener buddies that I MUST test the soil because horrible things like lead could be in it!  So I took the advice of one unnamed Master Gardener in the Beginner’s Guide to Growing Food and used the University of Massachusetts Soil Lab.  It tests for not only nutrients, which is all some of the crappy labs do, but also lead and other possible problems and only costs $9, so count me in!
 

And could it really be this easy?  I followed the instructions on their site: to gather soil from a bunch of different areas (they say 12 but the food-growing garden in question is so small, I used 6), then dry, mix, and put a cupful in a Ziploc bag, label the bag, and ship it off.   Three days later I had my test results via email, followed soon by the print version in the mail.
 

IT’S COME TO THIS: BRAGGING ABOUT MY SOIL
Here’s all it takes for me to get all proud of my soil: "Your soil pH is in the desired range."  And "Your soil contains very high levels of phosphorus and potassium."  That had my writing this to Ed Bruske:  "My soil is awesome!"  He sternly instructed me to forward him the actual results, which I did, and boy, was my bubble quickly burst.
 

First, after I’d raved about the complete-yet-cheap services of UMass, Ed shot that notion down with the put-down that the results are difficult to read and don’t even indicate the amount of organic matter, for crissake!  So maybe I should have paid another 6 bucks to use A&L, the lab that everybody around here recommends.  I see by their site that the "Complete Test" for $15.90 includes everything - the good, the bad, and the organic.  And astute readers probably already noted my mistaken glee at my "awesome" soil because it seems more like overfertilized soil and why the heck is that?  Given my modest, eco-friendly, organic (yada-yada) lawn care in the area tested I’m at a loss to understand, unless some soil science geek can postulate a reason.  Huh.  So, no more P or K for me, huh?  And no more UMass Soil Lab.
 

This just in:  I read in the latest Organic Gardening Magazine that it’s TYPICAL  for soils to have plenty of phosphorus and potassium but not enough nitrogen, so I’m back to bragging about it.  It’s lead-free!