Without Chemicals, He Points


This, above, is the kind of harvest we are getting every other day here at Steepmeadow. It is challenging to keep up with processing it, eating it, freeing it, giving away. I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but we've had to invest in a freezer. We've discovered techniques of blanching, using the vacuum sealer, trying to extend the remarkably short life of this veg.

Today was also the last really long run training for the Mill City Marathon in scenic Dundas, MN. 22 miles of running doesn't exactly prep you for more work.

While processing vegetables and preparing for a marathon, I've been using the all-important month of September to rip out weeds and plant the "poor man's bee lawn mix" in the front yard, for all to see. 

The thing is that we have something to prove. I want to show, by example, that you don't need to use a bunch of poison on your lawn in order to have a nice one that is insect friendly. It is sort of intended as a demonstration space. "See what we did with no chemicals? Pets and children can be on this green, deep-rooted red creeping fescue, sheep fescue, and clover mix any time they want." 

Without chemicals, we've got a showpiece lawn. 

The problem with this is that you do need to keep after it. Creeping Charlie, while it has been driven back from most of the lawn, is a crafty enemy. Its tendrils run deep. I'd be tempted to let it go, if it didn't have such a revolting stench and provide cover for the white grubs that my army of 5,000,000 nematodes is hopefully battling like the Allies marching on Berlin in April, 1945.

So it is not for nothing that I've been listening to Halestorm's Everest, "knowing I won't ever rest, I climb Everest..."


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