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Gardening Without Plastic

Plastic is a non organic substance which adds nothing to the soil. Plastics cause a lot of trouble if you try to grow crops were they have been buried. In fact some believe that plastics can interfere with plant growth. I have seen where plastic has actually killed the soil by cutting off the air exchange of the soil. One thing is for sure the organic gardener can do very nicely without plastic. When you think about it what could be more unnatural than plastic material mulch? Plastic keeps the soil untouched by sunshine, air, dew, or rainfall. Plastic does nothing to enrich the soil. With an organic mulch it breaks down into compost, humus and minerals. It also lets the air rainfall, dew and sunshine seep through it to the soil beneath.

Of course you will have much more work with an organic mulch. It will have to be replaced at least once a year as it breaks down and nourishes the soil. Plastic will set on the soil for years and do nothing for the soil. It will most most likely damage it almost beyond repair. Hay, straw and leaves make fine organic mulches, old newspapers, brown grocery bags and waste paper make an great underlayment for organic mulch. They provide a barrier to prevent light from reaching weed seeds and stimulating germination. When you work the soil you bring weed seeds to the surface where the the light will stimulate them to germination. A layer of paper with a thick organic mulch on top will stop this from happening and significantly loose time spent pulling weeds. Thus freeing you for the more pleasurable aspects of gardening. Organic mulch can be laid in thick layers to mulch nearly anything. From a box hedge, expensive evergreen border, a perennial bed, or a row of rhododendrons. These are all garden spots that respond well to a paper mulch. If you use a permanent mulch on your vegetable garden, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the absence of weeds. The paper can be covered with something attractive and organic. Such as hay, straw, compost, wooden chips, sawdust or anything else organic. You must cover the paper with something or the wind will scatter them all over the neighborhood.

The plastic industry has been with us for about 35 years now. During that time they have made it the good objective of their research to develop much more and much more indestructible material and more uses of this material. They’re great success, causes an ever growing burden on the sanitation department. This causes extra burden on the tax payers. You can garden just as well or much better without plastic. Even if that were not true. Organic gardeners that are truly worried with environmental contaminants must make up their minds to avoid using as much plastic as possible. It is one of the fastest-growing pollutants of all. A biodegradable plastic material has required the industry to spend a sizable portion of its income on serious research and development. The biodegradable plastics are heavily expensive for anyone to use.

The reports regarding plastic material have been very disturbing, for one thing plastic material is practically indestructible, unless you burn it. Which causes air pollution. It cannot be composted or digested. It is non degradable and incapable of being assimilated into the organic cycle. Our societies obsession with plastic has caused a blight on our land that time will not erase. We need to increase our efforts to improve plastic or decrease the use of it. How much nicer a reflection on our society it would be, if an archaeologist ten thousand years from now would insert a shovel into clean wealthy soil, breathe fresh air, drink pure water. Then name our present society for those characteristics, instead of the litter of plastic material that is fast over burdening us.

Thanks for reading and I hope you had learned something from this article.

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July 14 2010 | Gardening | No Comments »

Mulch – Nothing More Discouraging to Weeds

Everyone knows or practically everyone knows, that fall is the ideal time to get the lawn in shape for the winter. We gave ours an early feeding with fertilizer, and seeded some of the spots that had suffered during the summer. Black dirt was lightly sprinkled over the new seed, and it is surprising what a quick start and vigorous growth it made.

I don’t think our lawn has ever gone through the winter in better shape, and SOON it will get another light feeding. In spite of everything, there always seem to be a few spots that show up bare this time of year. I have to walk out over the lawn to find them, but they are there. Runners will fill many of these spots during the coming weeks, but I like to give them an assist.

Good seed is too expensive to waste. It doesn’t pay to sow anything but GOOD seed. Weeds will fill up the bare spots, without your sowing them. So, almost any time now, I’ll go over the lawn with a bucket of seed and a bucket of black dirt. (If you don’t have good weed-free black dirt you had better use peat moss, milled spagnum moss, or you can use vermiculite) .

In each bare spot I’ll scatter a pinch of seed, and cover it lightly with the mulch. Unless the ground is pretty wet, I’ll sprinkle this down with the hose. Likewise unless we get a shower now and then (and it isn’t too late to get some snow here) I’ll give it an occasional sprinkling.

Just remember that blue grass likes cool moist weather. It won’t germinate until the ground warms up. If your seed is just on the surface, remember that the ground dries out on top pretty quick. So no germination. Or if it has germinated, and the ground gets dry, the roots will very likely die before they get a foothold. So you can readily see the advantage of the mulch to help hold the moisture until the seed is able to take care of itself.

As you undoubtedly have guessed by now, I’m pretty happy just grass happy with our front yard. This is the side our friends and neighbors see. Actually I see more of the back yard. No one has ever heard me brag about that. There is a pretty large area just in grass, and we like the unbroken expanse.

Our back yard has all the customary pasture weeds, plus the crab grass. Fertilizing and spraying has helped, but still the area is not of what you might call bragging” quality.

So this year I am going to use some of the weed seed killers that are put on in dry form right along with the fertilizer. And I am going to use some extra feedings. Yes, I know that means more mowing, but that is what mowers are made for, so why not use them. Especially when you can ride. I always did like that feature.

But I really have another reason” in fact a pair of reasons. In the first place, nothing will crowd out and smother weeds like vigorously growing grass. But I will also mulch the garden. Oh yes, I know some of the experts say don’t use grass cuttings for a mulch. But I shall ignorantly go on doing it. The flowers, shrubs and trees, it seems, never heard of this and like me, they are too ignorant to know better than to like it.

There are just two things to do. First, stack it up and let it go through the heating process until it has dried out or cured. Second, it does take extra nitrogen on account of the bacterial action in decomposing. So I either put on straight nitrogen or use a complete fertilizer if I think that is needed.

Nothing is more discouraging to weeds than to try to grow up through a heavy mulch. Putting down mulch certainly helps hold the moisture in. Maybe this will be another year of good rainfall.

When I was a youngster a frequently used expression – and maybe it is still used, was Zip, I caught a yellow jacket, Zip, I let him go again.

And so I did. The other afternoon I was walking through the back yard, when I became conscious of something on my left forefinger. I instinctively closed my thumb and started to roll it between thumb and finger. Something told me Id better look at what I had. It just happened to be a yellow jacket. Did I ever shake him loose quick like?!

It was warm enough for him to be out, but still cold enough that he was just a bit too slow on the backward push.

April 24 2009 | Gardening | No Comments »