A Pragmatic Argument for Organics in the Garden

I will make no argument here about the need to buy and eat organic foods. If you can afford it, that's nice; I'm talking about something else, though.

I surprised myself when I made the change to organic chemicals in the yard and garden. Rather than arguments about the bad, bad people who make chemicals (as though organic compounds are not chemicals, somehow), my change to primarily—not entirely, alas—organic products came from pragmatics, less money and work for at least as good an outcome.

Long-term benefit: Feed the soil, not the plant

Fertilizer bags list the ratio of three main components: nitrogen (for big and green), phosphorus (for blooming and root development), and potassium (for overall plant health and endurance). Inorganic fertilizers include those three in larger amounts than organic fertilizers and for cheaper, so organics seem like a total rip—but wait! Those will be the only nutrients found in inorganic fertilizers, with the rest being inert material used to spread out the other stuff easily over a broad area (otherwise you would be putting a teaspoon of fertilizer over a broad area). Giving your plants (including lawn) a straight diet of the three main nutrients seems good enough, but I ask you to consider a broader, longer term game.

Some berries from a bed I rarely fertilize.

Inorganic fertilizers contain a number of micro nutrients. Think of the comparison of inorganic and organic fertilizers to the comparison of a vitamin and fresh fruit: the vitamin has the main element you want (e.g., vitamin C), but you miss the many other nutrients there (e.g., an organge's folate, fiber, copper, etc.). Likewise inorganic fertilizers give your plants a healthy diet of the innumerable nutrients of life.

Paul James (of HGTV's now cancelled Gardening by the Yard) used to say that inorganic fertilizers turn your plants into junkies, looking for their next big fix. I think of it like people who consume energy drinks rather than having a balanced diet, a quick fix over sustained health. Further, those micro nutrients create healthy soil, encouraging beneficial microorganisms to grow that naturally resist disease and keep all organic things in balance. Having healthy soil means plant life has a greater chance of being happy and healthy. It's about a long game.


Also, can we talk about not working against yourself? Inorganic fertilizers have the very bad habit of leaving salt in the soil, which kills off the good bacteria and microorganisms and squelches the other nutrients present. By using an inorganic you create a weakened (though green) plant and destroy the colonies of good stuff in the soil all of which then requires you to add in more fertilizer.

For the lawn, keep an eye out for organic fertilizer with corn gluten: it keeps weed seeds from germinating (actually, all seeds, so don't use it when reseeding). It will cost more than the regular weed and seed products, but you don't have to worry about burning your lawn or applying as often (I find, anyway). Just try spending as much on organic as inorganic fertilizer for a season (probably applying less for the season) and see if you are as happy: seriously, try it!

Cheaper:

First, organic products can be cheaper in the end because as you build up soil and plant health, you need less of them. I have found that my lawn stays green and the plants bloom well even though I fertilize rarely. I add organic fertilizer only occasionally and otherwise leave nature to keep itself in balance. I have few under-performing plants in the yard (only my azaleas come to mind), but even they could easily be improved by a little organic fertilizers I have on hand (there, fish emulsion) if I were to remember.

Also, some organic products are already pretty cheap. My favorite organic cure all is fish emulsion:  it's about as pleasant as it sounds, fish leftovers emulsified into a smelly, thick liquid. Fish emulsion does not cost much off the shelf, and diluted one tablespoon to the gallon it goes a long way. Straw, which can be lovely in your edible garden (especially strawberries) to lighten and enrich soil as it breaks down, comes pretty cheap for a whole bale.

Additionally, you can find some great organic products to get rid of pests that are way cheaper than inorganic. Insecticidal soap, which I buy in concentrate and dilute in a spray bottle every season, works well on some of my regular garden pests (especially earwigs). I found a popular inorganic pesticide stunted and about killed some of my annuals where the organic options never have (replacing plants=more money). Diatomaceous earth, as another example, comes in small cheap bag and got rid of my grub problem, saving me $40 dollars over my neighbor's solution to her infestation—also, I had some leftover (ha!).

Mouth Table Ready

If you are growing edibles, organics give you the greatest joy of gardening, eating the fruit of your labor right there in the yard. I'm sure I risk some serious gastrointestinal illness from eating cherry tomatoes off the vine, but when they are shining red at me, warmed by the sun, which brings out their sweet flavor, golly, I'm powerless—same for strawberries.


In sum, don't think that organic gardening has to be expensive or labor intensive; it can actually be the opposite of that. All your answers to what to use and when are generally just a Google search away.

In Defense of Weeds

I'm not talking about pot. 

I love my yard. I love being able to work in my yard. Perhaps my pleasure in the yard has to do with my heritage of farmers. Regardless, I enjoy the effort to tend a green lawn. 

My mother spent countless hours every week when the weather warmed nurturing and discipline her lawn into an unblemished field of green hybrid bermuda grass. She fertilized the grass, sprayed for disease, and meticulously hand plucked any weeds that squeezed they're way in; my mother's dedication to manually removing lawn intruders with the point of a screwdriver seemed legendary to me as a child, later reminding me of Buddhist monks that make art with colored sand. Our lawns were beautiful green, my mother's verdant masterpiece. 

When I bought my first house the yard was a veritable tabula rasa, nothing but an expanse of dirt covered in straw with grass seed underneath (the common planting method for where I live). Looking at the expanse I proclaimed, "Thick green grass shall I have!" I was wrong, not just because it didn't happen but because that's not a very good goal. 

Having a thick green lawn is fine, but I erred by wanting to replicate what my mother had achieved. Aside from taking hours to achieve that I don't have to spare, her craft, a solid, homogenous sprawl of grass has negative ecological and psychological impact—I might be overstating the latter.

Here's the ecological bit on the perfect, weed-free lawn: Weeds provide biodiversity. Disease spreads fastest where bio homogeneity exists. A fungus, bacteria, or insect will decimate an entire hedge of one shrub species hopping from one plant to the next; so too with grass. A few weeds or even the mix of grass species decreases the likelihood of that happening. Granted, I'm a sort of sloppy gardener, but I have not had disease issues with my lawn whereas my mother often had to watch out for issues. Maybe the reason is related to our grass species, but I'm willing to bet the random blend of grasses caused by my patching efforts and the presence of weeds drastically reduces the chance of a grass disease taking hold.

A flattering view of my lawn

That's a nice science argument for calming down about weeds, but here's the one that means the most to me: Learn to enjoy what you have. Here's this lovely shot of my lawn from just last week. It's an enjoyable rug of green, but there's at least couple types of grass in there along with some weeds and plenty of clover

I should add that I do not consider clover a true weed, rather a beneficial. Clover is a legume (in the family of beans, peas, and peanuts), which means it grabs nitrogen (the element needed for green) from the air and not the ground, so the grass doesn't compete with clover for nutrients. Also, clover fills in and shades bare or thin spots to help young grass seedlings stay shaded and moist, and it keeps back other weeds (a little). Most importantly, it's green.

When I look at my lawn I try to enjoy what I have, something green and soft to look at and walk on. I could obsess over the purity of grass in the lawn, but I choose to enjoy it for being green. The money, stress, and (most importantly) time I could put into making my lawn look like a Scott's commercial would be taken away from other things.

If you stare at it, the patchwork quality comes out. Eh.

"But I want a field of green like you would find in nature!" Then even my lawn is too homogenous; nature has weeds and variation, that's part of its beauty. Here's another view of my lawn, the hodgepodge and weeds stands out a little better. Again, it's green, so I'll take it.

I make peace with the weeds and accept the lawn for what it is. Don't get me wrong, when some neighbors had their lawn sodded last year I was as green with envy as the emerald carpet we stood on. The weeds do sort of annoy me, mocking my hope of green perfection, but through learning to accept their presence I let go of the insistence on things being as I imagine them rather than as life presents them.

For the Mowers

My baby: I admit to being the odd bird who likes

to mow the lawn. The day I got married I rose
early enough to to relax a little by getting one last
cutting in before leaving for a week.

Yesterday I got in the first mow of the year. It felt good. All day, it seemed, you could hear lawn mowers around the neighborhood running, the sounds of warm weather in suburbia, I suppose.

In the spirit of mowing season, here is my advice on lawnmowers (in rank order):

Raise it up!

Absolutely, my number one piece of advice—nay, plea—raise your lawnmower's cutting height. Most of us cut our grass too low. Want to keep down weeds, have the greenest lawn possible, reduce water use, and maintain healthy grass? Cut your lawn higher.

I think the love for low lawns comes from my home state. In southern California, hybrid bermuda grass reigns supreme. Many lawns in that region have common bermuda, but hybrid bermuda, which requires a reel mower rather than rotary, has no equal. You see hyrbrid bermuda on golf greens, cut to within half an inch of the ground, forming a dense, green turf. I think we have come to associate closely shorn lawns with civilization and the utter mastery of nature's wildness. Ecofeminism aside, most grasses should be cut higher than we do or have done by professionals (i.e., random people who own a lawnmower and a truck). Find out what kind of grass you have and cut it to the higher end recommended.

Here's the why for having a taller lawn: 1) research has shown a significant reduction in incidence of weeds (well over half, though I couldn't locate the university study I had seen) by choking out weeds; 2) higher lawn shades the ground more, which reduces the need for water; 3) taller lawn leads to deeper roots, which allows for stronger and more drought tolerant grass with better disease resistance.

4 strokes are better than two

If you should buy a power lawnmower and you're not going electric, about which I know nothing, look for a four-stroke engine, not two. Here's the key difference between them: two stroke engines burn oil and gas at the same time (often with a mix poured right into the gas tank); four stroke engines, like car engines, burn gas and consume very little oil at a time. Mechanics aside—especially since I can't hardly explain it—think about a small canister of oil burning into the air every time you mow the lawn: two stroke engines are that bad. Trashing the environment while you tend to your yard seems like a bad pairing.

Be like a hippie, compost

I'm not talking compost piles/bins, though those are lovely. If at all possible, don't bag your lawn clippings, use the composting mechanism the mower likely came with. When composting, the grass swirls around inside the cutting chamber longer, getting diced into smaller bits than usual and falling back onto the lawn. Why would you care? Two reasons. First, 50% of the nitrogen in the lawn clippings (the element that keeps grass green) will be reabsorbed by the lawn; it's like a self-fertilizing lawn. Second, if your city doesn't have green recycling, then that grass eventually sits under a tarp in a landfill next to cast off cathode ray tube televisions.

I admit, if the grass gets too tall between cuttings, this goes slowly or not at all because it clogs the mower. Just keep up with the mowing and mow half a strip at a time if need be. You, the lawn, and the earth benefit.

Treat your baby right

Maintenance: annual and weekly. Annually, check to see if you need to add or replace the oil. If you don't have much to mow, you may get away with biannual maintenance. I believe that if the oil is just barely brown and not black then you can skip one year (that is based on nothing but me). Also, check your air filter and replace it every year or so. Many times you can buy a kit at your local hardware store that has the oil, air filter, and spark plug in it; just note the make of your engine (not the mower) and look at the general shape of the air filter to figure out which kit you need.

Annually, remove the blade and have it sharpened, if you can't sharpen it yourself. It costs me about $4 a year to have it done. A sharp blade cuts cleaner, which has many benefits such as reducing lawn disease, slowing grass moisture loss, improving the look of the lawn (my mother can spot white tips on badly cut lawn at a glance), and making it easier for your mower to compost the grass without clogging.

After each use, make sure grass isn't stuck on the underside of the deck (the housing for the blade). Use a plastic putty knife, wire brush, or whatever (not a water hose!) to keep the damp lawn clippings from rusting out your lawnmower from the bottom, which I allowed to start happening. It's a simple thing that will prolong the mower's life.

Try to end the mowing season with an empty tank to keep the lines clean and water from ruining the insides. Alternately, buy some fuel stabilizer that you add to the gas to keep the inside from deteriorating while the snow starts falling.

Use a ruler not a calendar

Last, mow the lawn when it reaches mowing height. Rather than just mowing on Saturday—but if Saturday is your only day, then do that, of course—mow when you will only be cutting 1/3 of the height or less. If your lawn has gotten to four inches, and you must cut it, take no more than one and a third inches off. If you have a fescue, as I do, when it gets to four inches, cut it an inch or less, to keep the grass decently tall and to make composting easier. In ideal grass-growing weather I have to mow every four days, when it gets hotter and drier, I only need to mow my cool-weather lawn weekly.

That's it, now go love your lawn!

Happy Easter (Menu)

I began this blog before the holiday, but between cleaning the house for company, preparing a meal, and getting a 55 gallon fish tank set up in our living room (because, why not?) this is more retrospective.


I'm preparing an Easter dinner for my family today, so all I have to share today is the menu:

Appetizers

I staffed it out mostly, because you should try to not worry about at least one course of a meal.

Deviled Eggs

It's on theme and my mother-in-law does a killer job of them. They're simple and tasty; no minced scallions or obscure seasoning, just enhanced eggy goodness.

Dip and Bread

We are those people who buy dry dip mixes at regional festivals, so this seemed a good time to break one out. These usually are mixed with mayo, sour cream, cream cheese, or a combination thereof. The contents of the plastic baggy you mix in are just flavored excuses to eat something smooth and creamy (with a good bit of sodium), so don't over think it. For bread, I sliced a challah loaf toasted a white batard. I consider this staffing it out, because my partner took care of the dip and the bread took me five minutes.

Random Snack

I think appetizers—and maybe dessert, maybe—are the place to embrace hodgepodge. A guest asked what she could bring. I told her we were having dip and deviled eggs and to do what she would from there. Low expectations and no chance of disappointment for anyone; it was yummy!

Salad

I strongly considered a spinach and strawberry salad, but I decided to pass on that. I served iceberg lettuce wedges with a homemade buttermilk ranch dressing that came out more like a homemade buttermilk dill dressing because I never account well for the use of dry herbs instead of fresh; even when I think I'm scaling back I'm heavy handed. Served with a diced tomato garnish it was pretty on crystal dishes, but as I ate it I felt that it looked like I was too lazy to tear lettuce for a salad so I just made a few cuts and stopped. Ah, well: it was easy, and the dressing was made the day before. Good enough, I say!

Main Course

Sugar Cured Ham. Done! I believe in serving them at room temperature to really taste the play of sugar and pork. I was underwhelmed by the brand I used this year, so I'll go back to old reliable next time. Either way, a main course that takes five minutes to plate (and that's it) can't be too bad. I have basted my own ham before, but I found the professionals (aka, a pork factory) does the job just fine. Also, can we just save ourselves the hassle some times? My mother offered to buy a ready to serve ham for me—she didn't know I had already purchased one—just to make my life easier. Seriously folks, these things make the day so much better.

Side Dishes

Scalloped Potatoes

I would usually make Julia Child's Gratin Dauphinois. I made the recipe from America's Test Kitchen instead, which can be easily made the day before (so can Julia's, actually) and makes a thicker casserole that would serve more from a single oven dish. I was uncertain of the choice until I saw the authors' note cautioning substituting half-and-half or milk for the cream; then I realized they took the dish seriously. I made it a little thyme heavy (see note about me and dry herbs), but I liked it.

Oven roasted parsnips and multicolored carrots.

I'm pretty new to parsnips, but this is lovely. Peel, slice, toss with olive oil and salt, and shove them in the oven. They're pretty on the table and tasty.

Green Beans, from a can.

I served blanched haricot vert (thin, French green beans) last year, which I enjoyed. It would have been a little more trouble than I really had time for and only a few of us enjoyed it last time. This year I was just getting a green on the table; leave me alone.

Bread

King's Hawaiin Rolls
Let me explain! They are in a bag. All I have to do is toss them in a bowl to serve. Also, the sweetness works well with the meal and will be lovely for mini-sandwiches the week after. Lastly, a small confession, I care little about bread at meals. A hot baguette and cold butter with a white wine and maybe fruit or strong cheese is one thing, but bread on the side of my plate usually gets little notice from me.

Dessert

Nana Kate's Lemon Cake

Many people call it a poke cake, but I only know it as Nana Katee's Lemon Cake. This, dear reader, is my reward for the meal. It's moist, sweet, lemony, and my breakfast for the next three days. I think it actually fits with the time of year and the meal, but I don't care; this one's for me.

Brownies

I bought what looked like a decent boxed mix that also had the virtue of a middling price. I liked the choice even more as my partner made it the day before. They turned out well, so that's nice (not that I'm a brownie fan).

In short, I am ever trying to put on a meal that makes the day special without killing me in the process. I call today a win.